Homeland Security News

Three men were arrested on Tuesday over an Islamic State group-inspired plot to attack a variety of Sydney targets including police and defense buildings, courts, churches and diplomatic missions, police said.

A 20-year-old suspect had been monitored by police for a year since he returned to Sydney from Lebanon, Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Ian McCartney said. He was known to police in Lebanon.

The suspect is expected to be charged with preparing for a terrorist act and preparing to enter Afghanistan for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities on behalf of the Islamic State group, McCartney said, adding that he was to go to Afghanistan to take part in a separate plot. He could be sentenced to life in prison on each charge if found guilty.

Read more: ABC News

A Greece man who lied to agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation after he made a Facebook post supporting the New Zealand terror attack was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court

Thomas Alonzo Bolin, 22, who went by "Peter Vincent" on Facebook, pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the FBI. He was sentenced to time served (three months) and three years supervised release by U.S. District Judge David G. Larimer.

The investigation began when the FBI was investigating whether a series of Facebook posts in a group Bolin moderated were discussing plans for a terror attack. His comments were not illegal, but lying to the FBI was.

Read more: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

The United States has designated Pakistan's separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) as a terrorist group and says Washington is working to deny the organization access to resources for planning and carrying out attacks.

The U.S. State Department announced the decision on July 2, saying the BLA was "an armed separatist group that usually targets security forces and civilians, mainly in ethnic Baluch areas" of southwestern Pakistan.

The State Department announcement says the BLA carried out a suicide attack in August 2018 that targeted Chinese engineers in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan, a November 2018 attack on the Chinese Consulate in Karachi, and a May 2019 attack on a luxury hotel in Pakistan's southwestern port city of Gwadar.

Read more: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty