CLOSE CALL IN AUSTRALIA – AT 8:55 A.M. ET:   Australia apparently came very close to a terror disaster.  From the Sydney Morning-Herald: 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says intelligence indicates people in Australia were allegedly planning a public beheading to be carried out in the name of militant group Islamic State.

Mr Abbott's comments come as police say they have thwarted a "serious act of violence" after arresting 15 people and charging one in the wake of counter-terrorism raids across Sydney and Brisbane on Thursday.

Fairfax Media understands police will allege that the suspects were planning to snatch and behead a random member of the public, then drape them in the flag of the Islamic State, also known as ISIL.

Mr Abbott, who is in Arnhem Land to fulfil an election pledge to spend a week in a remote community, said on Thursday that a senior member of Islamic State, who is an Australian, had urged supporters at home to carry out "demonstration killings" in Australia, according to intelligence reports.

The Prime Minister was asked about reports that there were plans to conduct public beheadings, and he responded: "That's the intelligence we received.

"Quite direct exhortations were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country," Mr Abbott told reporters.

"So this is not just suspicion, this is intent."

COMMENT:  This should worry us here.  The kind of horror the prime minister described could occur in the United States, and attacking America gives any terror group the most important credential of all.  We are the Great Satan to them.

September 18, 2014