Passports taken from three Sydney terror suspects - Report

Australian authorities have cancelled the passports of three Sydney men who allegedly underwent guerrilla training with a radical Islamic group linked to Al-Qaeda, The Australian newspaper reported Friday.

The three allegedly trained in Kashmir with a group called Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has close ties to Al-Qaeda and to a French terrorist suspect who was deported from Australia last year and is now in a Paris prison, it said.

Police were unable to arrest the three because their alleged stint in Kashmir happened before the government adopted new counter-terrorism laws making it illegal to train with a listed terrorist organisation.

Instead Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, acting on recommendations by the main spy agency ASIO, cancelled their passports over the past two months to prevent the trio from linking up with associated abroad, The Australian said.

There was no immediate comment on the report from the foreign ministry.

If the report is true, it will bring to five the number of Sydney men linked by authorities to Lashkar-e-Toiba since Frenchmen Willie Brigitte was deported in October 2003.

Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) initially formed to fight the Indian army in the disputed territory of Kashmir but has allegedly evolved into an al-Qaeda-aligned group committed to battling perceived enemies of Islam worldwide.

Earlier this year police arrested two associates of Brigitte, Faheem Khalid Lodhi and Izar ul-Haque, on terrorism-related charges.

Lodhi was accused of being an LET operative and of plotting a terrorist attack in Australia, possibly on the country's electricity grid.

French authorities have alleged that Brigitte, who spent six months in Australia before being detected, was involved in planning for a major attack that may have targetted a nuclear power plant in Sydney or military installations.

Al-Qaeda has singled out Australia as a prime target for terrorist attack, notably since Canberra joined the United States and Britain in last year's invasion of Iraq.