Sydney, Aug 5 (DPA) Three Australians were charged Wednesday with terrorism offences, bringing to four the number of suspects charged in a suspected plot to bomb an army base in Sydney.

The trio were picked up Tuesday when police in Melbourne carried out a raid on a suspected Islamic terrorist cell they had been watching for seven months.

Five men are in custody, and police said the Australian citizens of either Somali or Lebanese descent had sought the blessing of a Muslim leader in Somalia for their plan to burst into the base and open fire with guns.

'It will be alleged that they had access to domestic-type weapons,' counterterrorism police spokesman Peter Dein said. 'There was no evidence that we had at this stage they had access to automatic weapons, but it will be alleged they were certainly planning to get access somehow.'

Dein said the suicide attack on Sydney's Holsworthy Barracks would have taken place 'within weeks'.