**islam and the challenges of modernity**, page-3

CANBERRA, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Up to 60 Islamic extremists, some
who have trained overseas, are operating in terrorist cells in
Australia's biggest cities Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's top
policeman said on Wednesday.

Mick Keelty, the Australian Federal Police commissioner, was
responding to claims by former Australian Security Intelligence
Organisation officer Michael Roach that the suspected terrorists
were based in Sydney and Melbourne.

"He's close to the figure that I am aware of," Keelty told
Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) radio.

"We are focused on the people who we are aware who have
trained overseas. We are focused on the people who we know have a
propensity to do something wrong," he said.

Australia, a staunch U.S. ally which sent troops to Iraq and
Afghanistan, has been on a medium security alert level since
shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States,
but has never suffered a major peacetime attack at home.

Roach, who retired less than two years ago after a 30-year
career with Australia's domestic intelligence agency, said late
on Tuesday that some of the extremists operating in Australia
have military training in explosives, reconnaissance, clandestine
communications and how to falsify documents.

"They are divided into groups within the cell structures, for
example, having the co-ordinator of the group down to those
people who actually will deliver the bomb," Roach told ABC
television.

A total of 88 Australians were among 202 people killed in the
October 2002 nightclub bombings in the Indonesian island of Bali
and the Australian embassy in Jakarta was hit by a suicide bomb
in 2004.