SYDNEY ¨C Australian police said on Tuesday they had released one of four men arrested in raids last weekend that foiled an ¡°Islamic-inspired¡± plot to bring down a plane.
Local media said the plot may have involved a bomb or poisonous gas.
A 50-year-old man was released on Tuesday night, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said in a statement, adding that no criminal charges had been filed against him. The other men remain detained without charge, the statement said.
The AFP has not released details of the plot, although a U.S. official familiar with the arrests told Reuters that the target appeared to have been a commercial flight from Sydney to the Persian Gulf.
Abu Dhabi¡¯s Etihad Airways said on Tuesday it was assisting the AFP in the investigation.
Australia has been on heightened alert since 2014 for attacks by home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East, or their supporters, but has suffered few domestic attacks.
The 2014 Lindt cafe siege in Sydney, in which the hostage-taker and two people were killed, was Australia¡¯s most deadly violence inspired by Islamic State militants.
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