The convicted were planning an attack in central Melbourne Australian court sentenced a man earlier for planning to blow up an Etihad Airways plane MELBOURNE: An Australian jury on Thursday found three men guilty of terrorism after they set fire to a mosque in the southern state of Victoria in December 2016. Sunni Muslims Ahmed Mohamed, Abdullah Chaarani and Hatim Moukhaiber set fire to a Shiite mosque in a suburb of Melbourne. Two had plotted an attack in central Melbourne just weeks later and were convicted of conspiring to plan a terrorist attack last year. They had bought machetes and explosives and tried to get a gun license before they were arrested, according to media reports. The three have yet to be sentenced. Australia, a staunch US ally that sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, has been on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East or their supporters. Last year, a Somali-born man set fire to a pickup truck laden with gas cylinders in the center of Melbourne and stabbed three people, killing one, before he was shot by police. Earlier this month, an Australian court found a man guilty of plotting to blow up an Etihad Airways flight out of Sydney under the orders of Daesh.