Yesterday the federal parliament had a 40-minute discussion on terrorism. It begun with a motion that dual nationals fighting with jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq should have their citizenship revoked, but then went off in a few other directions.

The Hansard transcript is available here but I’ve pasted the relevant section below.

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Governments throughout Europe have expressed fears that foreign fighters in Syria will return to their home countries as committed terrorists with deadly skills and violent intent. How plausible these fears are has been subject to debate. My view is that the fears are well-founded, and that we should no longer be asking whether any European fighters in Syria will return to attempt terrorist attacks, but how many currently have.

To help keep track of open-source information on this, this post provides a list of alleged violent plots in Europe involving people who had joined jihadist groups in Syria. I plan to regularly update the list as more incidents occur, or as more information on these incidents comes out, and may expand the list to include Australia and North America if plots occur there.

To be included in this list, the incident must meet the following criteria: 1. It must involve at least one person who has allegedly returned from fighting with jihadist groups in Syria. 2. It must involve violence or an alleged plan for violence. Simple threats of violence are not included. 3. The violence must have occurred, or been intended to occur, in Europe. This means the many cases of people charged for having fought in Syria, attempting to fight, or supporting fighters, are not included, even if they make some references to wanting to carry out violence in Europe. Also not included is the kidnapping and abuse of European journalists in Syria by British jihadists. 4. The violence or allegedly planned violence must have an apparent ideological motivation. If a returning fighter was to assault someone over an unrelated dispute, it would not be included.

The publicly available evidence for each of these cases varies, and none have seen completed trials. This means that none can be considered definitive, although the Nemmouche case in Belgium looks strong.

For those interested in more information on the Syria blowback, I recommend these articles by Lisa Lundquist and Raff Pantucci, which were useful for this post. Finally, please suggest any incidents I may have missed which meet the above criteria.

List of alleged violent plots in Europe involving Syria returnees:

1. October 2013: UK police arrested four men and charged them with terrorism offences. They were accused of planning a “Mumbai-style plot” in London, meaning a sophisticated mass shooting of civilians. The men had reportedly returned from Syria, and may have met there. UK authorities have kept a tight hold on information about the case.

2. October 2013: French police arrested a man named Lyes Darani, allegedly with “a manual explaining how to make a bomb and a letter containing a religious pledge to commit a suicide attack”. A report claimed that he “had just returned from Syria through Lebanon, where he had prepared an attack against Shiites and was inquiring about targets in France for a suicide attack”. He faces a charge involving “criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist undertaking”.

3. November 2013: Police in Kosovo arrested six terror suspects they accused of planning an attack, while a seventh remains at large. Authorities said they had been monitoring the suspected cell for over three months, had gathered evidence through video surveillance, phone tapping, and email monitoring, and had seized firearms and material for making explosives. Two of the suspects, had allegedly fought alongside Syrian jihadists, possibly Jabhat al-Nusra.

4. March 2014: French police claimed to have foiled an “imminent” terror attack planned on the French Riviera. Earlier in the year, Italian police had arrested, and extradited to France, a 23-year old man who had returned from Syria. He was allegedly caught with soda cans filled with explosives, nails, nuts and bolts. He was also allegedly linked to the Cannes-Torcy cell, which was suspected of planning a grenade attack on a Jewish business in September 2012.

5. May 2014: Dutch police arrested a 21-year-old man who fought in Syria and was allegedly about to commit armed robbery “to finance jihad”. He faces charges of planning a terrorist attack and illegal firearms possession.

6. May 2014: A gunman murdered four people near the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels. On 30 May a 29-year old Frenchman named Mehdi Nemmouche was caught, reportedly with guns, ammunition, and a video claiming responsibility for the attack. Nemmouche had also allegedly fought in Syria, with the former al-Qaeda affiliate the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). If the allegations prove true, these are the first deaths to occur in a Europe as a result of the foreign fighter flow into Syria.

7. June 2014: Police in Kosovo arrested three men and charged them with terrorism offences, reportedly involving planned “suicide attacks targeting mass gathering places in order to cause widespread bloodshed and casualties”. The three men had allegedly been recruited by ISIS.

8. July 2014: A Norwegian police statement said “We also have information indicating that a terrorist action against Norway is planned to be carried out shortly — probably in a few days.” The threat was treated very seriously, with security boosted at potential targets across the country. The plot reportedly involved four ISIS members who left Syria with intentions to attack in Norway or elsewhere in Europe. No one has been charged, but given that there are specific suspects and how seriously the threat was taken, the four suspects would certainly be charged if they were caught.

9. July 2014: A man named Mohamed Ouharani was arrested in Creteil, Paris. He had reportedly trained with ISIS and was allegedly planning to carry out a shooting attack modeled on the methods of Mohammed Merah and Mehdi Nemmouche. He has been charged under Frances “criminal association” anti-terror laws.

10. October 2014: Four UK-based men were arrested by counter-terrorism police and have been accused of planning a terrorist attack. Two newspapers claim one of them had trained in Syria with ISIS. However, other reports just say that one of the men “had a connection” to ISIS, not necessarily that he was a Syria returnee. I’m tentatively including this alleged plot in the list until more information comes out.

11. January 2015: Belgian police raided suspected terrorists, killing two and charging five others. The suspects were allegedly  plotting an imminent attack that would target police officers. The raids reportedly uncovered guns, grenades, ammunition, money, police uniforms and chemicals to make TATP (the explosive used in the London bombings). The two dead suspects had allegedly fought with ISIS in Syria.

12. August 2015: A gunman opened fire on passengers on a train from Amsterdam to Paris, before being overpowered. Some reports say he had returned from Syria, but I have not seen any follow-up on this for a while.

13. September 2015: French police arrested a man suspected of planning to attack a concert venue. It’s reported that he briefly trained in Raqqa (ISIS’s stronghold in Syria) before injuring himself, then was ordered by camp leaders to return to France for an attack.

14. November 2015: ISIS-associated jihadists murdered at least 129 people in multiple attacks across Paris. Several of the terrorists are reported to have trained in Syria.

15. March 2016: Danish police charged a teenage girl and a 24-year old man for allegedly planning a bombing attack in Copenhagen. One of the reported targets was a Jewish school. The man is believed to have fought with ISIS in Syria.

16. March 2016: Terrorists bombed an airport and train station in Brussels, killing 28 people. One of the suicide bombers who attacked the airport, Najim Laachraoui (who was also the bomb-maker), apparently travelled to Syria in 2013 and joined ISIS. Another suicide bomber, Ibrahim el Bakraoui, is believed to have tried to travel to Syria but was arrested in Turkey and deported.

17. March 2016: French police arrested a 34-year old man name Reda Kriket for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack. He was reportedly involved with several other suspects, caught with explosives, firearms and fake documents, and had travelled to Syria in 2014 and 2015.

Update 1: This post initially said that the names for the terror suspects in Plot 1 had not been released. However their names had actually been released following a High Court decision earlier this month , though most of the trial will remain secret. In Plot 3 I initially said the suspect was arrested by French police, but he was actually arrested by Italian police in January and extradited to France. I fixed these errors on 30 June 2014, thanks to Raffaello Pantucci for pointing them out.

Update 2: This post initially included the following incident:

June 2014: French police arrested four citizens, two of which had allegedly returned from Syria. They were wanted for “questioning by an anti-terrorism judge for alleged criminal association in view of preparing a terror act”. I have not found any further information, such as what groups in Syria they may have been involved with.

However, Timothy Holman alerted me that it may not meet Criteria 3 (that the planned violent action must be in Europe).

In the French press sources I have the arrests are related to a foreign fighter facilitation network based in Nimes that may have sent up to 20 persons to Syria. See for example http://www.midilibre.fr/2014/06/19/six-ans-requis,1010853.php or http://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/revolte-en-syrie/deux-jihadistes-francais-arretes-a-leur-retour-de-syrie_625419.html I agree that the use of the term in the English article “It said the four were wanted for questioning by an anti-terrorism judge for alleged criminal association in view of preparing a terror act, without specifying.” suggests a terrorist act but the articles in English and French do not designate a target, nor method of attack etc. In Le Monde, it states, “association de malfaiteurs en vue de préparer des actes de terrorisme” without giving details of attack planning but writing about the number of persons sent to Syria.

I have removed this incident from the list (on 30 June 2014) for now, hopefully more information will come out that clears it up.

Update 3: Added the alleged Norway plot on 22 September 2014.

Update 4: (also on 22 September 2014) I’ve come across three other possible alleged plots, but the information is too thin to conclude they meet the four criteria for inclusion. If any of you have information on the following three incidents, please let me know.

1. February 2013: An assassination attempt occurred against Danish journalist and Dispatch International editor Lars Hedegaard.  The man arrested over it has reportedly fought in Syria. However, from what I can tell his reported involvement with Syrian extremist groups occurred after the assassination attempt, so it may not meet criteria 1.
2. August 2014: A French-Moroccan suspected jihadist was detained at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, as part of investigation into a possible “conspiracy to plan terrorist acts”. It’s not clear if he was ever charged.
3. September 2014: Media reports suggest a Dutch couple who had fought in Syria were arrested in Belgium, possibly for plotting an attack on the Berlaymont building, which houses the European Union’s Brussels offices. It does not look like anyone has yet been charged.

Update 5: On 17 November 2014 I added the alleged October 2014 UK plot.

Update 6: (Also on 17 November 2014) Here are another two possible alleged plots, but the information on them is so thin that I’m keeping them out of the list for now.

1. Late 2013: French police arrested a man named Lyes Darani, allegedly with “a manual explaining how to make a bomb and a letter containing a religious pledge to commit a suicide attack”. A report claimed that he “had just returned from Syria through Lebanon, where he had prepared an attack against Shiites and was inquiring about targets in France for a suicide attack”. It is not clear if he was charged. Now added to list, see Update 8. Thanks to Timothy Holman for alerting me to this article.
2. July 2014: A newspaper reported that a British jihadist had returned from Syria, team up with another UK-based extremist, and plotted an attack that would involve firearms and explosives. It also reported that they remained in contact with a Syria-based controller. However, the report did not give any details about who the man was or what charges he faced.

Update 7: On 23 November 2014 I added the alleged July 2014 France plot. I relied a lot on Google Translate for it though, and would appreciate any further info. I was alerted to this plot by Thomas Hegghammer mentioning it at a recent presentation in Melbourne.

Update 8: On 27 November 2014 I added the alleged Lyes Darani plot, after Jean-Charles Brisard mentioned that he had been charged.

Update 9: On 25 January 2015 I added the alleged Belgium 2015 plot.

Update 10: On 29 September 2015 I added the alleged French concert venue plot. I hadn’t revisited this post for a while, so I suspect I may have missed some cases between January and September 2015, but also wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of the earlier cases have turned out to be less well-founded than first reported.

Update 11: Added the Paris attacks on 17 November 2015.

Update 12: Added the train attack and alleged Cophenhagen plot on 12 March 2016.

Update 13: Added the Brussels attack on 27 March 2016.

Update 14: Added the March 2016 French plot on 2 April 2016. Also, at some point I need to go back through this list and make sure the details remain correct and see if any returnee connections turned out to be false. I don’t know when I’ll get around to that, so if you are planning to use this list in an essay and want something to check it against, I recommend this list of European jihadist plots by Petter Nesser:

Here are some more opportunities I’ve noticed recently for Australians interested in national security and international relations.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute is currently looking for interns. These internships go for six months and are paid.

The Parliamentary library is also looking for interns.

The Australian National University‘s Department of International Relations is looking for a research fellow. Applications close 31 May 2014.

The US Consulate in Melbourne is looking for a Political/Economic Assistant and a Computer Assistant. It doesn’t look like you have to be a US citizen.

As mentioned last time, the journal Security Challenges is holding it’s 2014 Young Strategic Writers’ Competition. Anyone under 35 can apply, and the winner will receive $2,500 and have their article published. It closes on Friday 1 August 2014 so there’s still time.

King’s College London is holding the Inaugural VOX-Pol Conference on Violent Online Political Extremism, and have called for papers. Abstracts must be submitted by 16 May (three days).

For those interested in studying in the United States, Fulbright Scholarships have opened up.

I’ve had a new article published on ASPI’s blog The Strategist.

It’s about Australians fighting in the Syrian conflict, this time looking at the potential impact of the intra-jihadist infighting. The post goes into detail about the growing fratricidal conflict, with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham on one side and al-Qaeda and its Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra on the other, and some of the implications for Australia.

It’s also time for a brief update on the involvement of Australians in the Syrian insurgency.

There have now been ten reported deaths of Australians in the conflict: Mustapha al-Mazjoub, Roger Abas, Marwan al-Kassab, Sammy Salma, Yusuf Toprakkaya, “Abu Asma al-Australi”, Yusuf Ali, Amira Ali, Caner Temel, and Ahmad Moussali. For many of these cases there have been strong indications that they were fighting with jihadist groups. These indications include interviews with those who fought beside them, YouTube clips of them firing weapons or preparing explosives, or martyrdom notices and videos officially released by organisations like Jabhat al-Nusra. However, for several of the cases the available information is more ambiguous.

As I note in the piece, there have been plenty of state counter-measures. For example, on December 2013 two men were arrested in Sydney and charged under the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978. Police allege that one man, Hamdi Alqudsi, had recruited at least six fighters (including two of those killed, Yusuf Ali and Caner Temel). They allege the other arrested man, Amin Iman Mohammed, was preparing to fight. I have not come across a date for when they’ll appear in court.

Another tactic has been ASIO’s confiscation of passports, which has increased, by a lot. ASIO had used this power 18 times from mid-2012 to mid-2013, compared to around 50 times in the preceding decade. It was recently reported that 33 passports had been cancelled over the past nine months, so the number would now be over 100.

Authorities have also been using bank account restrictions and coercive questioning, as well as public messaging and community engagement initiatives.

However, the situation in Syria itself is changing, with conflict breaking out between the competing jihadist groups, which is playing out in Australia’s small jihadist scene. If you would like to know more about that, please read the article.

These are some opportunities I’ve noticed, over the past couple of weeks, for Australians interested in national security and international relations. Good luck!

The journal Security Challenges is holding it’s 2014 Young Strategic Writers’ Competition. Anyone under 35 can apply, and the winner will receive $2,500 and have their article published. It closes on Friday 1 August 2014.

The Society for Terrorism Research is calling for papers for it’s 8th Annual International Conference, which will be held in Boston on 17-19 September 204. The conference theme is “Communication & Collaboration for Counter-Terrorism” and it aims to bring practitioners and academics together. They are also holding a Student Paper Contest (see page 2). Proposals for papers must be by 15 May, and finished student papers must be in by 1 July.

The Australia Indonesia Youth Association is looking for more contributors to its blog.

The Kokoda Foundation‘s National Security Careers Night 2014 will be held on 27 March.

The Australian Army’s Directorate of Future Land Warfare (DFLW) is commissioning academic research from all over Australia, and I’ve heard that they are particularly interested in commissioning from the humanities, and from social and behavioural sciences.

The Australian National University‘s School of International, Political and Strategic Studies is hiring Research Fellows. They are looking for people working on political and social change in Japan, Korea, Malaysia and/or Vietnam. Applications close on 31 March.

There are vacancies for some Defence graduate programs, such as the Intelligence & Security Development Program and the Defence Pathways – Graduate Development Program. They close on 7 April.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s graduate scheme is also open. It closes on Monday, 17 March.

The Lowy Institute is seeking an East Asia Program Director and an International Economy Program Director. These close on 14 March.

I have a new article on ASPI’s blog The Strategist about Australia’s need to take independent reviews of national security legislation seriously. You can read the article here.

This is a companion post to go into some more detail about the sources and background.

Last year, these  four independent reviews of national security legislation were tabled in Parliament:

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

Independent National Security Legislation Monitor – annual report 7th November 2013
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC)
12 December 2013

The brief period of media discussion following the reports focused on their most controversial parts, such as the INSLM’s calls to abolish ASIO’s detention powers and the AFP’s preventative detention powers. The response of both major parties was simply to avoid doing anything that could result in them being accused of weakening national security.

When the then Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, tabled the COAG report and one of the INSLM reports (after 5pm on budget night, when there’d be minimal media coverage) he stated “In light of the recent terror attacks in Boston, it is clear that it is as important now as it ever was to maintain strong capabilities in the fight against terrorism…. Our counter-terrorism framework has held us in good stead so far, but we cannot afford to stop being vigilant.”

And that was it. There was no other response to these reports from the Gillard government, or from the Rudd or Abbott governments.

This is really unfortunate. These are extremely valuable reports, and where they have made recommendations to remove existing powers they have also provided detailed arguments that doing so will not harm national security, which at the very least deserve a similarly detailed response and not just assertions of ‘national security’ back.

Moreover, most of the recommendations were actually about more mundane issues, such as that some of Australia’s counter-terrorism legislation is so poorly-worded as to make it unusable, or that some bits leave dangerous gaps.

My article for the Strategist focused on one of these gaps, using the recent disappearance of a convicted terrorist, Khaled Sharrouf, as an example of why these reviews deserve a response.

The INSLM’s 2012 report made a proposal to reshape Australia’s control order regime. While the report opposed control orders in most circumstances (particularly when used against people acquitted of terrorism offences like Joseph Thomas) it argued that obtaining a control order for a convicted terrorist, when there’s sufficient evidence they continue to pose a danger, should be made much easier than it currently is (see pages 43-44).

The flaws and problems of the CO provisions discussed above are most evident and pressing in cases where COs are proposed to be made against persons before charge and trial, after trial and acquittal or who will never be tried. On experience to date in Australia, and consideration of the different but comparable experience in the UK, there is a vanishingly small category of such cases, in any event.

Even if by misfortune those numbers were to increase appreciably, the proper response need not and should not involve COs in their present form. Instead, the twofold strategy obtaining elsewhere in the social control of crime should govern. First, investigate, arrest, charge, remand in custody or bail, sentence in the event of conviction, with parole conditions as appropriate. Second, and sometimes alternatively, conduct surveillance and other investigation with sufficient resources and vigour to decide whether the evidence justifies arrest and charge. (And, meantime, surveille as intelligence priorities justify.)

On the other hand, the dangerous and outrageous social transgression constituted by proven terrorist crime presents ample justification for COs against terrorist convicts where they can be shown to present what may be called unacceptable risks if they were free of all restraint upon release when their sentences of imprisonment expire.

Recommendation II/4: The provisions of Div 104 of Part 5.3 of the Code should be repealed. Consideration should be given to replacing them with Fardon type provisions authorizing COs against terrorist convicts who are shown to have been unsatisfactory with respect to rehabilitation and continued dangerousness.

By his next report, he sounded very concerned about this recommendation being ignored (pages 4-5):

Recommendation II/4 was for consideration of authorizing control orders against persons convicted of terrorism, after their release from any imprisonment to which they have been sentenced, if they are shown to have been unsatisfactory with respect to their rehabilitation and continued dangerousness. The intention was to make available a form of protection against the threat posed by such proven offenders, upon their release into the community. The proposal was for a much more simply obtained form of control order than is presently the case, including for such proven offenders. It drew on established analogues with respect to recalcitrant sexual offenders. When the recommendation was made, there were about ten terrorist convicts already released, and about thirteen still imprisoned, of whom about three are quite likely to be released in the next five years.

Indirect support for such an approach may be seen in the following UK experience.

The Court of Appeal of England and Wales has considered notification requirements (imposed for 10 years from the date of release from imprisonment) on convicted terrorists. The Court held the notification requirements4 to be appropriate and not disproportionate, and upheld them as compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights.5 The Court held that the scheme is not disproportionate when set against the legitimate aim of the prevention of terrorism and considering “the relatively moderate intrusion caused by the interference with the private lives of convicted terrorists”.6 The Court held that terrorism offences fall into a special category and that “even if it is the case that there may be exceptional cases [where a terrorist offender can be said to pose] “no significant future risk”, their possible existence does not preclude a general requirement of relatively moderate interference in a context such as this”. 7

The Court held it was “important to keep in mind the gravity of the disorder or crime which is being sought to be prevented” finding that terrorism offences have unique features which compound concern (acts committed by someone motivated by extreme political or religious fanaticism) and if anything calls for a precautionary approach it is counter-terrorism.8

The INSLM’s recommendation was made on 20th December 2012. Nothing has come to the attention of the INSLM about any governmental or official response to it.

The Abbott Government has recently been talking about how seriously it takes counter-terrorism. Responding to these four unanswered reviews would be a good start.

To find out more about Sharrouf’s disappearance and what it says about counter-terrorism law reform, it see my Strategist article here. For more information about Khaled Sharrouf and the Pendennis plot, see his sentencing document here. See also the sentencing document for the main Sydney Pendennis trial, particularly paragraphs 20-24, 30-34, 42, 103, 140. Sharrouf was also an unindicted co-conspirator in an aborted second Pendennis trial in Melbourne, see paragraphs 1-3, and the sections titled “The Current Trial – Evidence” and “The Haines evidence”.

On Friday I had a post published on ASPI‘s blog The Strategist about Indonesians fighting in Syria. You can read it here.

It was partly prompted by this Timothy Holman post on jihadist foreign fighters, where he points out the need for greater efforts to break down the different factors behind the impact of foreign fighter mobilisations on domestic political violence (as opposed to simply saying “lots of fighters could mean lots of plots”) and for more research on non-Western examples.

For more about Indonesians fighting in Syria, see this report by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict which was released on Thursday. It’s a great report, particularly the sections on how Indonesian jihadists perceive the Arab Spring and the role of apocalyptic literature. The New York Times has some coverage of it here.

I also recommend this two-part Jakarta Post profile of Indonesian terrorism researcher Solahudin and his very interesting life, here and here.

Here is a table of the most up-to-date estimates of the numbers of Westerners who have fought, and died, in the Syrian insurgency.

The table provides minimum and maximum estimates on the number of fighters from each Western country (‘Western’ used here to mean Europe, North America and Australia) and the numbers of death notices appearing in jihadist media outlets.

The data in this table is not my own, but comes from two recent reports by Aaron Y Zelin. I’ve combined tables of his together to create this larger table, so be sure to credit him if you use any of these figures.

The data on the number of fighters comes from the Western Europe foreign fighters table in this report and some of the additional data on other Western countries in that report. It provides the following explanation what these minimum and maximum estimates are based on:

Our dataset contains approximately 1,500 open source items which have been collected since November 2011. They include: media reports about foreign fighters in English, Arabic and several other languages (and from both sides of the conflict); government estimates; and statements about foreign fighters by jihadist groups, typically published in online extremist forums and on social media.

For each country, we provide “low” and “high” estimates, with low figures including only fully confirmed cases where names are known, and high figures representing the maximum number of individuals based on credible sources.

The data on the numbers of jihadist death notices comes from this report, which notes the following limitations:

Since the Syrian uprising turned into an armed rebellion, jihadists have announced the deaths of more than 1,100 fighters on their Twitter and Facebook accounts and, to a lesser extent, on password-protected forums. Although other foreigners have been killed in Syria, their deaths were reported by non-jihadist rebels, Western media, or Arabic media and are not included in this assessment. The figures below also exclude foreigners who have fought on the Assad regime’s side.

To be sure, the information gleaned from jihadist sources is self-reported, and some data might therefore be suppressed for political reasons, especially reports of Iraqi involvement. That said, it still offers a worthwhile snapshot of an otherwise murky world.

I’ve ordered the table in three different ways, so you can easily see how the countries compare to each other in each of the three categories.

Version 1: Western fighters in Syria by country, ordered by low estimates (descending).

Version 2: Western fighters in Syria by country, ordered by high estimates (descending).

Version 3: Western fighters in Syria by country, ordered by number of jihadist death notices (descending).

Enjoy.