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.
