Five teenagers aged 18 and 19, arrested in the early hours of Saturday in a series of raids in Melbourne, were allegedly planning "atrocious" ISIS-inspired attacks on police and the public next week at Anzac Day events in Australia.

Acting Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan of the Australian Federal Police told a news conference in Melbourne that the plan targeted "ANZAC Day activity in Melbourne which included targeting police officers." The plot was to have involved "edged weapons." 

"At this stage we have no information that it was a planned beheading. But there was reference to an attack on police," Gaughan stated. "Some evidence that we have collected at a couple of the scenes, and some other information we have, leads us to believe that this particular matter was ISIS-inspired," he added. 

Acting Victoria Police Commissioner Tim Cartwright said in Melbourne that the men were allegedly planning "atrocious acts." According to police, the alleged plot could have been carried any time in the next week.

ANZAC Day, which stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, is celebrated on April 25. It's a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand marking the date of the first Gallipoli landings in 1915, in which thousands of soldiers lost their lives fighting against the Muslim Ottoman Empire, to capture the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople. 

The suspects included two 18-year-olds, alleged to have been preparing the attack, another 18-year-old was arrested on weapons charges, while two other men, aged 18 and 19, were in custody and assisting police, AP reported.

One of the men, Sevdet Besim, appeared briefly in court on Saturday on a charge of planning a terrorist act. He didn't apply for bail and was ordered to reappear in court on April 24. 

According to federal Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan, the teens had links to Abdul Numan Haider, an 18-year-old who stabbed two Melbourne police officers and was subsequently shot dead in Endeavour Hills in September.