These days, Australia has increasingly become a front line of the war on terror. The attacks started in September of last year, posited by some as “lone wolf” operations, but all with a connection to ISIS. First came a pre-emptive wave of arrests, followed a week later with a knife attack on two police officers. Both developments came within weeks of an Australian ISIS commander publicly urging followers to rise up and join the war at home. Three months later, Australia endured a hostage situation in Sydney that ended with the death of the terrorist, who had at least expressed sympathies with ISIS and jihadists.

Now Australia has pre-empted another terrorist attack, which they claim also has links back to ISIS:

Two men were charged on Wednesday with planning to launch an imminent terrorist attack in Australia, after police seized a homemade flag associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, a machete and a hunting knife in a counterterrorism raid.

The men, aged 24 and 25, would have carried out the attack on Tuesday if they had not been arrested that day in the raid in the Sydney suburb of Fairfield, New South Wales state Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn told reporters.

A video that was seized during the raid showed one of the men making threats, though Burn declined to detail exactly what was said. Australian Attorney General George Brandis later told the Senate that the video depicted one of the suspects kneeling in front of the Islamic State flag with the knife and machete while making a politically motivated statement and threatening to commit “violent acts” with those weapons.

But was there coordination? Counter-terrorism investigators are still trying to find that out:

Police were trying to determine whether the men were in contact with anyone from ISIS.

“Yesterday, our focus was to act on information that we received about something that was imminent,” Burn said. “We believe that we have stopped that threat from occurring. However, there are further investigations that now we will need to follow through.”

Man Monis, the Sydney hostage-taker, demanded an ISIS flag during his siege at the chocolate shop, but there have been no direct connections to ISIS yet found. This may be another of the aspirational plots that ISIS has been encouraging rather than directing, influencing radicals still in Australia to act on their own initiative. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that problem will likely get worse rather than better:

The video allegedly depicts the men kneeling in front of a large Islamic State flag while making a statement in Arabic.

Mr Abbott said it was imperative that police and security agencies be supported as IS, also known as Daesh, reached out all around the world, including in Australia.

“Regrettably there are people in this country who are susceptible to these incitements to extremism and even terrorism,” he said.

“This is a serious problem and I fear it will get worse before it gets better.”

The Daily Telegraph reports that the plot involved beheadings, first of police and then broadening out to the general public. It also digs into the history of the two suspects:

One entered the country ­illegally. And the other was on the dole.

Omar al-Kutobi, 24, arrived in Australia by plane in 2009 as an Iraqi national using another person’s passport, a senior intelligence source has confirmed to The Daily Telegraph. …

It was also confirmed that the second man charged, Mohammad Kiad, entered Australia in 2012. He was granted a visa under the family and spousal visa arrangements.

Kiad was receiving welfare, a Newstart allowance, at the time of his arrest.

That should prompt some questions about emigration and national security Down Under. And perhaps elsewhere, too.