A bomb found behind a Sydney police station and linked to last year's Muslim riots could have been deadly if it had detonated, police say.
Officers are following a number of "very strong leads" as they investigate online threats against police that refer to the explosive device.
Counter terrorism commander Peter Dean said the threats seemed to link the bomb to last year's Islamic protests in Hyde Park.
"There's a comment in the Facebook blogs and also in the email that talks about protests in Sydney so there is an assumption that there's some link there," he told reporters in Sydney on Thursday.
The hand-sized device was found in the rear car park of Campsie Police Station on Tuesday afternoon.
An inspection by the bomb squad established that the contraption contained explosives but had been constructed in a way so that it could not detonate.
Commander Dean says the device could have been deadly if it had exploded.
"If it had been constructed properly and it had detonated it would have been very dangerous to somebody standing nearby'," Commander Dean told reporters in Sydney on Thursday.
"It also could have created a shrapnel effect with objects around it like the fence and the glass windows of the station, which could have caused damage or injury."
It is not clear whether the device was specifically designed not to explode, he said.
Police are now investigating threats posted on Campsie police station's Facebook page, as well as contained in an email to a newspaper, which complain about previous police operations.
A post on the Campsie Police Station Facebook page on Tuesday made a "veiled threat about police not listening to somebody in relation to certain things".
A similar post was also made on the Facebook page of a television station, and an email sent to the Daily Telegraph and titled "bomb threat in Sydney" warned that "we have already stored the detonator with stick somewhere in a police station".
"We have detonated a bomb protesting against your killings of muslim overseas, and your unjust conviction of our brothers and your treatment of us when we protested in Sydney," the email said.
Police are using CCTV of the area surrounding Campsie police station to try to identify the person or people responsible for planting the device.
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