The Murphy Raid ended 2012 with 3-part series on the state of Australian jihadism:

Australian jihadism at the end of 2012, part I: before 2012

Australian jihadism at the end of 2012, part II: key events in 2012

Australian jihadism at the end of 2012, part III: what has changed?

I was thinking of marking the end of 2013 with a similar series. However, the main development has simply been the continued involvement of Australians in the Syrian conflict, which I’ve written on several times already.

So instead, this is a post of resources on Australia and the Syrian insurgency for anyone who wants to stay up-to-date on this topic. It has past writings by me and others, plus some information on new developments.

My writings on Australians in Syria

On 26 November an article of mine was published in CTC Sentinel. It was a 2000-word piece that gives an overview of current information on Australians fighting, how it relates to past Australian jihadist activity, and what threat it may pose at home.

Earlier I wrote three other pieces on this topic. This article from April was an introduction to why the Syrian conflict raises domestic security concerns for Australia. This post from June provided a list of reported incidents of Syria-related violence in Australia (I have not come across media reports of any new incidents since then). This post from July expressed scepticism towards the estimate that 200 Australians were fighting in Syria, 100 of them with Jabhat al-Nusra (this estimate isn’t used as often now as it was then).

If you only want to read one of these articles, I recommend the CTC one, as it’s the most up-to-date and it covers the points made in the three earlier articles (though in less detail).

New developments

However, two significant developments have since occurred.

First, on December two men have been arrested in Sydney and charged with several offences under the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978 for allegedly supporting al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria. Police allege that one man, Hamdi Alqudsi, was actively recruiting fighters (at least six) and facilitating their travel to Syria to join Jabhat al-Nusra and presumably the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. They allege the other man was preparing to travel and fight with such groups.

These arrests undermine a claim from my CTC Sentinel article where I suggested the process of Australians traveling to fight in Syria was not very organised:

“In Australia’s previous foreign fighter mobilizations, well-connected individuals were usually needed to facilitate access to camps and conflict zones.[39] In the case of Syria, however, many of the Australian fighters appear to be entering via the Turkish border with few pre-existing connections to Syrian armed groups.”

The arrests indicate that at least some active recruitment and facilitation may actually have been occurring in Australia. Moreover, Federal Police Deputy Commissioner National Security Peter Drennan has said that he does not believe this case is a once-off and that several similar networks may be in place. If true, this indicates that the process of Australians travelling to fight to Syria may have recently become more organised, or may have always been more organised than it appeared.

We will have to see what comes out of this trial, and any future ones, which will be very interesting to follow.

Second, on 8 December it was reported that around 20 Australians had their passports confiscated by ASIO in the past few months because of suspicions they were planning to fight in Syria.

At the time of ASIO’s last annual report, its passport cancellation powers had been used about 70 times. Now with the new confiscations reported, that figure would be around 90.

As ASIO had used this power 18 times from mid-2012 to mid-2013 (which was more than any previous year), this means ASIO has cancelled passports around 40 times in the past 18 months. Previously, ASIO’s passport powers have not been very controversial, and have often not been noticed much at all. However, I suspect this massive escalation of their use means there will be quite a bit of controversy over them in 2014, particularly as several of the men are mounting a legal challenge.

Combined with the arrests above, it looks like the AFP and ASIO have recently decided their lack of success in preventing Australians from fighting in Syria means they have to make greater use of the legal tools they have. We will likely see further arrests and uses of these powers in 2014.

Other articles

Many other countries are concerned that foreign fighters in Syria may later pose a domestic threat. If you’re interested in the wider situation, take a look at these recent pieces by Aaron Zelin, Thomas Hegghammer and others:

Foreign Fighters in Syria: A Danger to the West?

Up to 11,000 Foreign Fighters in Syria; Steep Rise Among Western Europeans

Foreign Jihadists in Syria: Tracking Recruitment Networks

Dealing with European Foreign Fighters in Syria: Governance Challenges & Legal Implications

But more importantly…

Finally, this is all a very narrow way of looking at Syria’s civil war. The greater problem is the war itself, that it has killed over 100,000 people, caused over two million people to flee their homes, and isn’t likely to end soon. This humanitarian catastrophe is far more urgent than the conflict may later have on Australia and other Western countries.

Prompted by this War On The Rocks post, I’m going to end the year with a donation to UNICEF’s operations to help Syrian refugees. If you would like to do the same you can do so here.

There is a widespread view that the terrorist threat in the West will, for the near future, consist mostly of ad-hoc attacks by individuals or very small cells. A recent article by the US writer Michael Hirsh, chief correspondent for National Journal, typifies this view. In the UK Matthew Goodwin has written that “the days when we faced a clearly identifiable threat with top-down chains of command look obsolete. Instead we have lone attackers or small cells of fanatics”.

In this post I question whether there has in fact been a trend towards self-starting small-scale plots and whether we should assume it will continue. The post specifically focuses on jihadism, as it poses the most serious current terrorist threat to the West (though far from the only one).

Has there been a trend towards self-starting small-scale plots and ‘lone wolves”?

Recent data does show a turn towards plots that involve very small numbers of attackers. A recent Bi-partisan Policy Center report which examined jihadist plots in the United States from 2011 to 2013 (inclusive) found that of 17 plots, 13 were carried out by individuals and the remaining four were by pairs.

A similar, but less dramatic, shift towards smaller cells is evident in Europe. Petter Nesser’s research found that from 2008 to 2012 (inclusive) there were 33 European jihadist plots, of which 11 were carried out by individuals, compared to four out of 72 for the period from 1995 to 2007. Then in 2013, two men with apparent jihadist motivations were charged over the murder of a British soldier in Woolwich, followed a week later by a possible copy-cat attack in France.

Not only are fewer attackers involved in jihadist plots in Europe and the United States, they are less likely to have received training or direct guidance from overseas jihadist organisations. This is particularly the case in the United States where none of the 2011-2013 plotters are known to have had such assistance.

This shows that there has indeed been a trend away from plots like the Madrid and London bombings towards self-starting plots by individuals and increasingly small cells. This has resulted in widespread commentary on ‘lone wolves’, including a report that senior police in Australia are concerned that “a ‘lone wolf’ strike will become the model of terrorist activity over the next decade.” Although many scholars push back against attempts to over-hype ‘lone wolves’, and the term is confusingly used in many different ways, the trend towards these self-starting and small-scale plots is clear.

What might have caused this trend?

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross notes that it is easy to misperceive temporary fluctuations in data on terrorist plots for massive, enduring shifts in the nature of the threat. Noticing a trend is one thing, judging whether it will continue requires looking at the broader context and the causal factors behind the trend.

Using Petter Nesser’s review of the literature on ‘lone wolves’, we can identify at least three key factors: organisational capability, strategic instruction, and tactical contagion.

The first factor refers to how the success of counter-terrorism measures against an extremist movement may leave it with little choice but to rely on self-starting attacks by sympathetic individuals. For example, effective crackdowns on violent white supremacist organisations in the United States from the 1980s resulted in a proportional increase in ‘lone wolf’ attacks by far-right extremists. Similarly, the United States has reduced the capability of al-Qaeda Central in Pakistan and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen to direct or guide large-scale plots, partly prompting the shift in attack methods.

The second factor is that jihadist strategic texts and orations have increasingly promoted the ad-hoc approach. A book released by jihadist strategist Abu Musab al-Suri in late 2004 theorised an ‘individual terrorism jihad’ where the movement’s sympathisers attack at their own initiative wherever they can. At the time al-Qaeda’s leadership was reluctant to adopt this method, and al-Suri was soon captured. Since then, AQAP’s Inspire magazine adopted his ideas, explicitly promoted them, and provided detailed instructions in the English language. The highest ranking American in al-Qaeda, Adam Gadahn, also endorsed this approach in a video released in 2011 and a recent video by al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called for “dispersed strikes” that can be carried out by “one brother, or a small number of brothers.”

The third factor is tactical contagion. Terrorists often emulate the tactics of other terrorists. Ever since the London bombings, ad-hoc jihadist attacks have proven more effective than sophisticated ones. The success (in terms of causing deaths) of the self-starting attacks in Fort Hood, Little Rock, Paris, Boston and Woolwich caused other aspiring jihadists to emulate them.

Will the trend inevitably continue?

These factors help explain the current trend in jihadist plots. But they do not provide reason to presume that trend will continue, because none of these three factors are static.

For example, al-Qaeda’s limited organisational capability to directly carry out attacks in the West may not be permanent. A recent American Enterprise Institute report, as well as the Bi-partisan Policy Center report, showed how al-Qaeda’s affiliates and associates have a far greater geographic presence and reach than they did a decade ago. With two al-Qaeda affiliates seizing territory in Syria, a series of jailbreaks throughout the Middle East and North Africa in July (including about 500 prisoners escaping in Iraq), and the Egyptian coup seemingly re-validating jihadism, al-Qaeda’s strength may be increasing. Consequently, it may well rebuild its external operations capability and return to launching direct attacks that overshadow the ‘lone wolf’ threat. Indeed, Thomas Hegghammer tentatively predicts a “second wave” of large-scale attacks in the West in four to six years’ time.

Similarly, al-Qaeda’s strategic instruction can change. The movement’s leaders and strategic thinkers may decide to instruct their followers to refrain from ad-hoc attacks. This could occur if such attacks continue to produce few casualties and little economic damage, or if al-Qaeda does manage to rebuild its external operations capability. A simple change of minds in key decision-makers could significantly reshape the threat.

Finally, because of tactical contagion a single successful attack of a different sort could also alter the current trend. If another plot like the London bombings (a cell of at least four people, some with training, and receiving direct guidance from al-Qaeda) kills over a hundred people, it could prompt emulation. Western jihadists may then once again form larger groups and make more effort to seek out external training and support. Recent UK arrests suggest that the Westgate massacre in Kenya, a large-scale urban warfare assault, has already sparked copycat attempts. An attack within a Western country would likely have a greater contagion effect.

What does this tell us?

This shows that the widespread view (that the predominant terrorist threat in the West for the near future will consist of ad-hoc attacks by individuals or very small cells) is less tenable than it appears. There has certainly been a recent trend towards these sorts of attacks, but the key factors behind the trend could well change, possibly quite rapidly. We shouldn’t assume that terrorist plots over the next decade will closely resemble those of the recent past.

One power often used by ASIO after 9/11 was its ability to cancel passports to prevent suspected terrorists from travelling overseas. Technically DFAT withdraws the passports, but as a result of adverse ASIO assessments.

Unlike ASIO’s coercive questioning powers or its ability to issue adverse assessments for visa applications (resulting in the indefinite detention of over fifty refugees), very little has been written about its passport-confiscation powers.

Here is a rough table of how many Australian-passport holders have had their passports confiscated, or returned, each year as a result of ASIO security assessments.

This table presents the figures as best as I can ascertain, and I have placed question marks against any numbers in the table that do not come directly from an ASIO annual report. Unlike its coercive questioning powers, there is no mandatory requirement that ASIO report when it issues security assessments for passports, so the available information is fragmentary. The sources are listed in detail at the bottom of the post.

Sources:

2015-2016 annual report

Adverse security assessments issued for 62 passports (P.52).

2014-2015 annual report

Adverse security assessments issued for 93 passports (P.22).

2013-2014 annual report

Adverse security assessments issued for 45 passports (P.iii).

2012-2013 annual report:

Adverse security assessments issued for 18 passports (P.16).

2011-2012 annual report:

No information about passports in the annual report, but the last INSLM report says 7 were cancelled during this period.

2010-2011 annual report:

Adverse security assessments issued for seven passports (P.24).

Three were subject to new assessments (P.25).

One was Mamdouh Habib, who was issued a non-adverse assessment on May 2011 (P.31).

According to this article, over 50 were confiscated by this point.

2009-2010 annual report:

Adverse security assessments for eight passports (P.22) (See also p.24 of 2010-11).

10 people were issued non-adverse assessments and had their passport rights renewed (P.23).

2008-2009 annual report:

No mention of passports.

2007-2008 annual report:

Adverse security assessments issued for two passports (P.19).

2006-2007 annual report:

No mention of passports.

2005-2006 annual report:

Adverse security assessments issued for eight passports (P.4).

By end of reporting period, 14 people were having their passport refusal reviewed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (P.31).

2004-2005 annual report:

No mention of the number of passport refusals for the year. But it was probably 12 or 13 (see below)

Total 32 adverse security assessments for passports between November 2001 and June 2005 (P.3).

One was Mamdouh Habib, on 25 January 2005 (P.19).

33 adverse assessments had been issued in total, but ASIO withdrew one (P.21).

By end of reporting period, eight people were having their passport refusal reviewed by Administrative Appeals Tribunal (P.21).

2003-2004 annual report:

Adverse security assessments issued for six passports (P.3).

Total of 20 passport refusals since November 2001 (P.3).

Bilal Khazaal’s passport cancelled on 1 February 2002 (P.18).

Maher Khazaal’s passport cancelled on 23 December 2003 (P.18).

2002-2003 annual report:

No mention of passports.

2001-2002 annual report:

No mention of passports.

Update 1:  I initially wrote that ASIO’s power to cancel a passport was introduced after 9/11. I was mistaken, according the this book the power existed long before 9/11, but was rarely used. On 5 December 2013 I changed the text to reflect this.

Update 2: This transcript from the Security Appeals Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal provides some insight into the decision-making involved when ASIO cancels a passport, and of the appeals process. Added on 5 December 2013.

Update 3: Added data for 2013-2014 on 13 November 2014. Also fixed up the data for 2011-2012 based on the last INSLM report, which then required adjusting the “total __ by this point?” numbers.

Update 4: Added data for 2014-2015 on 29 October 2015.

Update 5: Added data for 2015-2016 on 15 October 2016.

In light of the massacre in Nairobi and yesterday’s conclusion of the appeals process for the Holsworthy Barracks plotters, it’s worth revisiting what threat al-Shabaab may pose within Australia.

Al-Shabaab came to public attention here in 2009 with Operation Neath, an investigation which resulted in five Melbourne men being charged with planning a mass shooting at Holsworthy army barracks in Sydney. Three of the men, all linked to al-Shabaab, were found guilty and sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment.

The appeal decision this week again confirmed the danger this plot posed. The three convicted terrorists all tried to argue that the prosecution was a farce, one of them claimed he was set up by an undercover cop, and another claimed the judge was biased. Had their appeals succeeded it would have cast doubt on one of Australia’s largest terrorism investigations and damaged the legitimacy of Australia’s domestic counter-terrorism efforts.

Instead, the three appeal judges found their arguments baseless and upheld all of the convictions and sentences. They court also rejected the prosecution’s appeal attempt, who claimed that the sentences were not severe enough.

The planned Holsworthy attack demonstrated al-Shabaab posing a serious internal threat, though an indirect one, as the plot was an example of a self-starting terrorist cell emerging autonomously from what began as an al-Shabaab support network.

This was an al-Shabaab-linked plot, in that the cell members had raised money for al-Shabaab, sent people to train with them, and sought their endorsement for attacking Australian targets. However it was not an “al-Shabaab plot”, as the Somali jihadist organisation did not provide practical support or endorse the planned attack. They advised against the plot as it risked damaging their support base.

The terror attack in Nairobi potentially demonstrates that al-Shabaab has an increased willingness and capability to attack outside of Somalia, raising the possibility that its threat to Australia is higher now than it was when the Holsworthy plot occurred.

Is this the case? One cause for concern is that al-Shabaab’s relationship with al-Qaeda has changed. At the time of the Holsworthy plot, 2009, al-Shabaab was not a formal affiliate of al-Qaeda. However, in February 2012 al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda officially merged, meaning that “the constraints that previously held al Shabab back from sanctioning an attack, are in all likelihood removed.”

Therefore, if another group of Australian al-Shabaab supporters asked their permission for an attack, they would now be more likely to receive it.

However, my view is that there is less likely to be substantial connections between al-Shabaab and Australia today than there was prior to 2009, for four reasons.

First, al-Shabaab’s already limited popularity in the global Somali diaspora has declined in the past few years. Al-Shaabab is now less likely to be viewed as a nationalist resistance to the 2006 Ethiopian invasion and more as an extremist group, one that was partly responsible for the horror caused by the 2011 famine by attacking aid organisations.

Second, over the past year Shabaab’s emir, Ahmed Godane, has been killing many foreign jihadists in Somalia as part of an internal power struggle. This was the power struggle that resulted in the death of Omar Hammami, their most famous American member. Consequently, al-Shabaab is less welcoming to aspiring Western jihadists than it was when the Holsworthy plot occurred.

Third, the Commonwealth has proscribed al-Shabaab as a terrorist organisation in August 2009, making it easier to take legal action against its supporters.

Finally, Operation Neath resulted in the imprisonment of a key facilitator, Saney Aweys. This is significant because well-trusted intermediaries are very-often needed to connect aspiring jihadists with established jihadist organisations. Given the relatively small size of Australia’s jihadist scene, there aren’t usually many of these facilitators around at any one time, and curbing the activities of a small number of such individuals can have a large impact.

So, my take is that there are now less likely to be groups of Australian jihadists who are well-connected to al-Shabaab, and that we can therefore make an informed guess that al-Shabaab poses less of an internal threat today than it did in 2009.

The bad news is that if such groups do still exist and intend to carry out an attack, al-Shabaab, as a formal affiliate of al-Qaeda, is now more likely to support them.

I hope to return to regular blogging, but might not manage to for a while. For now, here are a few updates.

The final version of my journal article, “Explaining a turning point in Australian jihadism” is now available. However it requires a journal subscription.

In June I posted about a conversation, happening at ASPI’s blog The Strategist, on Australian intelligence oversight. I’ve since updated the post to include some more recent contributions.

I also recommend this Strategist post by David Connery about how serious and organised crime is now being described as a national security threat. As he shows, calling it a “threat to national security” has far reaching implications that have barely been discussed.

Hamish Hansford from the Australian Crime Commission responds here.

There have also been two recent reports on organised crime:

Inquiry into the gathering and use of criminal intelligence
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement (PJCLE)
15 May 2013

Organised crime in Australia 2013
Australian Crime Commission (ACC)
30 July 2013

Three reports discussed earlier in this blog, recommending significant changes to national security legislation, were tabled in Parliament on May and June this year. However the government has not yet responded to them, meaning it will be up to whoever wins the election (not that they will feature in the campaign).

The reports were:

Independent National Security Legislation Monitor – declassified annual report 20th December 2012
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC)
14 May 2013

Council of Australian Governments review of counter-terrorism legislation
Council of Australian Governments (COAG)
14 May 2013

Report of the inquiry into potential reforms of Australia’s national security legislation
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS)
24 June 2013

Since April, almost every article about Australian involvement in the Syrian civil war, repeats the claim that 200 Australians are fighting in the insurgency.

This number is being treated as the one and only official estimate, and two days ago an article in TIME incorrectly attributed the number directly to “a public statement made by David Irvine, director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO)”.

In this post I argue that the 200 figure should not be treated as authoritative, and present several reasons why it’s likely to be an over-estimate. I’ve made several of these arguments before, but as the TIME article irked me I’ve decided to put them all together to make a clear case for scepticism.

There is no one official, public, estimate of the number of Australian fighters in Syria. Instead there have been several conflicting reports of statements by government officials.

200 figure originated from an article in The Australian on Saturday 13 April, where Cameron Stewart and Paul Maley reported that “the number of Australians believed to be fighting in Syria has doubled in less than six months to about 200, and ASIO is concerned that at least 100 are fighting for radical al-Qa’ida offshoot, the al-Nusra Front.”

In an article published on Monday 16 April, a journalist had asked ASIO Director-General David Irvine about Australians fighting in Syria. He stated that “we are talking in the hundreds and not the tens”. This suggested that ASIO officially endorsed the estimate of 200 or more fighters (which was how I interpreted it in this article I wrote on the day).

However, Irvine’s words may have been a bit more ambiguous. While the journalist, Brendan Nicholson, stated that Irvine was referring specifically to fighters, it is not clear from the actual quote whether Irvine was referring only to fighters or to all Australians involved in the conflict in some capacity.

Later that evening, Foreign Minister Bob Carr was interviewed on 7:30 and explicitly downplayed the 200 fighters claim by saying:

“There was a global figure quoted on the weekend in an interview I did that I can’t confirm or deny. The number of Australians who actually had been participating in the fighting would be a good deal lower than that 200 figure that was quoted. That 200 figure, if it is right, would include people who are raising money, expressing sympathy, people who have been described to me as Jihadist tourists turning up in a trouble spot.” [emphasis added]

Recent reporting casts further doubt on the ‘200 fighters, 100 with Jabhat al-Nusra’ claim. On 22 June Federal Police Commissioner Peter Drennan, while cautioning that the numbers were unclear, said that only “a handful” of Australians were believed to be fighting with Jabhat al-Nusra. It’s not clear how many “a handful” is, but it certainly sounds like less than 100.

Then on 1 July the Sydney Morning Herald reported that “the Australian Federal Police believe 150 to 200 Australians have travelled to Syria, with a significant proportion fighting with the resistance, about half of whom are with al-Qaeda aligned group Jabhat al-Nusra”. [emphasis added]

So there are no solid numbers available, but the ‘200 fighters, 100 with Jabhat al-Nusra’ claim should just be considered as one estimate among several, and all other government statements (with the possible exception of David Irvine’s) suggest the number is lower.

My own view is that 200 figure is extremely high compared to past trends in Australian jihadism, and therefore is probably an over-estimate. I went into that in the article from April:

“A recent study by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), based on 450 sources including Western and Arabic media and online jihadist forums, estimates that 135-590 Europeans have joined the insurgency.

…

At the time the ICSR’s European estimates were published, April 2, the study’s author Aaron Zelin provided the following estimate for Australia: 18-123 fighters.

…..

The ICSR’s estimate has been superseded by the more recent figure of 200 Australians involved. This new figure cannot currently be verified, and should be treated cautiously until more information comes out. The estimate is higher than the ICSR’s maximum estimates for any European country, and one third of their maximum estimate for Europe as a whole. This seems doubtful, particularly as Australia usually has far lower rates of jihadist activity than many European countries.

Open-source research by myself and my colleague Shandon Harris-Hogan has found 17 cases of Australians allegedly involved in jihadist activity in Lebanon between 2000 and 2012. If the estimate of 200 Australians involved in jihadism in the Syria-Lebanon region since the outbreak of the Syria conflict is accurate, it represents an unprecedented escalation.”

None of this changes the fact that there has been substantial Australian involvement in the insurgency, and that the Syria conflict raises extremely serious security concerns for Australia, both because of current local violence and the potential threat from returning fighters.

But that only makes it more important for anyone writing on the issue to be careful with the facts. Personally, I can’t make any claim to know what the actual number of Australians fighting in Syria would be, and will reconsider my arguments if more solid information becomes available. However,  for now I recommend scepticism towards this widely-reported 200 figure.

This large estimate is worrying but fortunately not authoritative, as it is in serious tension with several government statements, the currently available empirical information, and past trends.

The Syrian civil war raises national security concerns for Australia, not only because a number of citizens have joined the insurgency (leading to the recent proscription of Jabhat al-Nusra) but because of local violence by supporters of both sides.

To help gauge the extent of this local violence, here is a list of the incidents reported in the media so far. These are the 17 reported incidents referred to in the Sydney Morning Herald today.

I’ve intentionally included as many incidents as possible to be as comprehensive as open sources allow. Most of the events involve serious violence (arson, assaults and shootings), but not all. Also, as this list is of events reported in the media, not proven events, it may turn out in a couple of cases that the reported incident did not occur. Some of the events may turn out to be regular criminal violence that was wrongly attributed to Syria-related sectarian tensions.

However, list also likely misses several incidents. Many crimes in general are not reported to police, many crimes reported to police do not get covered in the media, and many journalists have found that victims of this Syria-related violence have been afraid to talk. For these reasons I suspect the true extent of Syria-related violence in Australia is somewhat greater than this list suggests, particularly in Sydney.

The incidents are divided by the city they occurred in, then by the side of the conflict the perpetrator was likely on, and within those categories they are listed in chronological order.

Canberra. Pro-rebellion, February 2012: Up to forty men forcibly entered the Syrian Embassy and damaged property. [ABC]

Sydney. Pro-rebellion, February 2012: A Sydney man was shot immediately after a Facebook debate over the Syria conflict. [Global Mail; The Age; SBS; Sydney Morning Herald]

Sydney. Pro-rebellion, July 2012: Suspicious fire destroyed a Bankstown chicken shop, with the owner believing he was targeted because he was a Shia Muslim. [Global Mail; The Leader; Sydney Morning Herald]

Sydney. Pro-rebellion, August 2012: A fight outside a Sydney train station hospitalised an elderly supporter of the Syrian government. [ABC]

Sydney. Pro-rebellion, November 2012: Two men were arrested after alleged threats to a Shia mosque during Ashura. [Daily Telegraph; Adelaide Now]

Sydney. Pro-rebellion, throughout 2012: A Shia man who owned a juice shop, that was targeted in the Facebook page “Boycott Tyranny”, was assaulted and extorted. [Global Mail; Sydney Morning Herald]

Sydney. Pro-rebellion, April 2013: A Sydney man was assaulted on ANZAC Day by men he believed to be followers of convicted terrorist Belal Khazaal, who had been his neighbour. [Today Tonight]

Sydney. Pro-rebellion, May 2013: Jamal Daoud, an opponent of the Syrian insurgency, was punched in front of Today Tonight cameras. [Today Tonight]

Sydney. Side unclear, August 2012: Four shootings in quick succession were reported as having possible links to the Syria conflict. [ABC]

Melbourne. Pro-rebellion, March 2012: A petrol bomb attack was carried out against a Turkish Alawite centre in North Coburg. [Global Mail; The Age]

Melbourne. Pro-rebellion, date unclear but early to mid 2012.: An Alawite man was attacked in the street by six men. [The Australian]

Melbourne. Pro-rebellion, date unclear but early to mid 2012: Suspicious fire destroyed an Alawite prayer room in Greenvale. [The Australian; The Australian]

Melbourne. Pro-rebellion, November 2012: Armed men confronted and chased the Alawite owner of shop in Thomastown, telling him “we’re going to shut you down, you Alawite dog.” [The Australian; Today Tonight]

Melbourne. Pro-rebellion, date unclear: An Alawite Muslim’s house was firebombed. [Today Tonight]

Melbourne. Anti-rebellion, date unclear: Arson attack occurred against the car yard owned by the husband of Sonya el-Abbas, whose brother had died in Syria. [The Australian]

Melbourne. Anti-rebellion, date unclear: Another arson attack occurred against the car yard owned by the husband of Sonya el-Abbas, this time caught on tape. [The Australian; Today Tonight]

Melbourne. Anti-rebellion, date unclear: Drive by shooting attempt against the house of Sonya el-Abbas. [The Australian]

Feel free to send any incidents I may have missed, with sources.

This is another short post to announce a new publication. Yesterday The Strategist (the blog of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute) published a post of mine on the oversight of Australian intelligence agencies.

The post argues that Australian intelligence agencies are excessively secret, and that their accountability mechanisms fall short, when compared to several other liberal democracies.

It was part of a conversation The Strategist was having on intelligence oversight. I’ve pasted the relevant posts below.

Tobias Feakin, Looking through the Prism, 17 June 2013

Andrew Davies, Government surveillance and Australia’s multiple watchdogs, 19 June 2013

Andrew Zammit, Australian intelligence organisations: the limits of oversight, 24 June 2013

Nic Stuart, Orwell’s dilemma: more reflections on intelligence oversight, 25 June 2013

Andrew Davies, Even more reflections on intelligence, 4 July 2013

Kristy Bryden, A little transparency, please, 7 August 2013

Update 1: Added Andrew Davies’ latest post on 4 July.

Update 2: Added Kristy Bryden’s on 25 August.

Blogging has been light this month, but I’ve had two recent publications you may like to see.

The first is this post on the ideological diversity of terrorism, published on Fatima Measham’s blog This is Complicated.

The post was prompted by the apparent return of the idea that ‘not all Muslims are terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are Muslims’. This idea seemed to have faded away a bit after the attacks by Anders Breivik and Wade Michael Page, but has returned in some circles following the attacks in Boston and Woolwich. After Andrew Bolt stated that “[w]e have the right to worry, and even the right to suspect every time a bomb goes off that Muslim hands set the detonator”, I felt the need to present the available terrorism statistics and show that jihadism is far from the only threat.

That said, the post does show that jihadism indeed poses the greatest current terror threat to Australia. For more detail on that threat, have a look at my upcoming article (paywalled) in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism.

Abstract

After 2003, Australia’s domestic jihadist plots shifted from being externally-guided to being entirely self-starting, which was out of sync with international trends. To identify the causes behind this turning point, this paper first provides a brief overview of jihadist activity in Australia, showing how the post-2003 shift differentiates it from comparable countries. The paper then examines several potential explanations for the shift that prove insufficient. Following that, the paper demonstrates that the shift occurred because key facilitators between Australia and South Asia were removed or deterred. This factor, combined with the limited strategic importance of Australia, low levels of jihadist radicalisation, and limited diaspora involvement from the countries most central to al-Qaeda operations, explains Australia’s specific pattern of jihadist activity.

Note that this is not the final version of the article. Rather, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism is providing a new service of allowing the articles to go online before final publication, so that authors’ research findings can reach the public as early as possible, as explained here:

For selected journals, Taylor & Francis offers the Accepted Manuscript (AM) Online feature, whereby the accepted (but unedited and uncorrected) manuscript is posted online, normally five working days after receipt at Taylor & Francis, and appear in a “Latest articles” list on the journal’s webpage. The posted file is clearly identified as an unedited author’s accepted manuscript that has been scheduled for publication. Copy-editing, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof are then undertaken on this manuscript before formal publication of the Version of Record (VoR). During production and pre-press, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal relate to the AM Online version.

The final version will be out in September this year.

My colleague Muhammad Iqbal shows how the EDL’s actions following the Woolwich attack follow its traditional method of mobilising support.

The brutal murder of a British soldier in Woolwich on Thursday sparked immediate reaction by the far-right English Defence League (EDL), with 250 members of the group taking to the streets in protest.

This development should not be surprising, as from its beginnings the EDL mobilised support by preying on citizens’ fears of Muslim extremists.

EDL’s origins

The EDL can trace its roots to the an incident on March, 2009, where a group of Muslim radicals, collectively known at the time as Ahle Sunnah al Jamah, staged a protest and shouted abusive phrases at soldiers returning from active duty in Afghanistan.

Also at the incident was anti-Muslim activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who is now more commonly known as Tommy Robinson. Prior to this incident, Robinson claims to have been active in protesting what he describes as the Islamisation of Luton, going back all the way to 2004 when he and other individuals held up banners saying “Ban the Luton Taliban”.

However, after the incident with the returning troops, and similar protests in other parts of the country, Robinson felt that his struggle should be taken to the national level. He did this through establishing the English Defence League.

From its formation, the EDL gained strength from the activities of Muslim extremists. This is exemplified through both the EDL’s real-world and online activities.

EDL’s online presence

While the EDL does not have an official YouTube account, many of its followers have uploaded videos of EDL related activities or created whole channels dedicated to the group.

This was examined in research I presented at last year’s GTReC conference. As one example, I found that out of 155 videos on one unofficial EDL account, 23% specifically mentioned the Ahle Sunnah al Jamah, one of its successors, or members of these groups. A further 45% of the videos have as its main focus, the supposed dangers of Islam, Muslims and/or Shariah law. Only 32% of these videos did not mention a perceived Muslim threat.

Further analysis of the contents of these videos show that they can also encourage its viewers to demonstrate or rally against the actions of Muslims that were perceived to be “Islamising” Britain.

One such example of this was a string of videos that was in direct response to the launch of a “Shariah Controlled Zone” campaign that was initiated by a group called al-Muhajiroun, the successors of Ahle Sunnah al Jamah. The YouTube videos urged its viewers to attend demonstrations protesting the establishment of such zones, which sometimes drew large numbers.

Such demonstrations have in the past degenerated into violent skirmishes with the police or counter-protest rallies.

The EDL today

In recent years, the EDL have seen a decline in popularity. Whereas its rallies used to attract people in the thousands, the past year or so have seen events attended by only hundreds of people.

However, terror attacks such as the brutal slaying of Lee Rigby can provide the far-right group with a platform through which they can revive their divisive and destructive activities. The surge of new followers on their twitter account, and the fact that their Facebook account boasts more than 100,000 “likes” since the attack, shows that they are well poised to exploit such tragedies. So far, this has also translated to a spike in attendance of EDL rallies, with a rally in Newcastle attracting between 1500 to 2000 supporters. This was then followed by a march through London, which attracted around 1000 people.

The actions of the EDL will do nothing but further fuel this cycle of hatred, and in the face of such tragedy, cooler heads need to prevail.

Muhammad Iqbal is a researcher at the Global Terrorism Research Centre (GTReC). He is a graduate of Monash University’s Master of International Relations, completing a dissertation on the historical development of Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia. His interests include radical movements in Indonesia and Australia, as well as progressive Islamic thought and movements in Indonesia.