04-Aug-17: The complex terror bombing plot in Sydney has roots in ISIS, maybe Saudi Arabia and most worryingly Turkey

Etihad flight over Sydney [Image Source]

An Associated Press analysis of an elaborate and potentially devastating terror plot to bring down an aircraft and its passengers in Australia raises some disturbing concerns - mainly by not focusing on them.

The syndicated report ["Australia police: Men tried to get bomb on Sydney plane", Kristen Gelineau | Associated Press | August 3, 2017] describes a scheme to hide an explosive device on an Etihad Airways flight (the airline is based in Abu Dhabi) out of Sydney in July. The Australian authorities got their first inkling about the plot and the plotters through a tip from unspecified foreign intelligence agencies on July 26, 2017. The suspects were arrested in Sydney on July 29.

The Australian Federal Police said in a media conference today (Friday) that Islamic State played a central role. They described how four men were arrested in a series of raids in Sydney last weekend. The relationships that tie them together have been described vaguely in numerous media reports over the past week:

Four men are being held at the Sydney police station under special terrorism powers after being arrested during counter-terror raids on Saturday night. The ABC has been told the group allegedly planned to conceal the bomb in a kitchen meat grinder before smuggling it onto a plane. A senior police source told the ABC that Khaled and Mahmoud Khayat were among those being held. The two other men, Khaled and Abdul Merhi, are believed to be related, but it is unclear how. ["Sydney terror raids: Police scour raided homes for third day over alleged plane terror plot", ABC Australia, August 1, 2017]

And

The government has so far declined to reveal any further details of the plane threat... All it will say is that the four - believed to be two fathers and their sons - planned to use a "non-traditional" device and had "an Islamist, extremist terrorist motivation." ["Four arrested over alleged plot to bring down aircraft", SBS News Australia, July 31, 2017]

In today's account:

Khaled Khayat, 49, and Mahmoud Khayat, 32, have been charged with two counts of planning a terrorist act. A third man remains in custody, while a fourth was released without charge. Khaled Khayat's brother has not been charged in connection with the plot, because police believe he had no idea the bag contained explosives... They were refused bail and the case was adjourned until Nov. 14. Police have not detailed the men's relationship... One of the men, a 49-year-old from Sydney, brought the device to Sydney airport on July 15 in a piece of luggage that he had asked his brother to take with him on the flight — without telling the brother that the bag contained explosives, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan told reporters. But for reasons still unclear, the bag never got past the check-in counter. Instead, Phelan said, the man left the airport with the bag, and his brother continued onto the flight without it... [Associated Press | August 3, 2017] 

A little more detail:

Phelan said police still don't know precisely why the bag containing the explosives never made it past the check-in counter. Some theories are that it was too heavy, or that Khaled Khayat simply chickened out... [Associated Press | August 3, 2017]

Reuters today focuses on that grotesque twist - that one brother attempted to send his allegedly-unwitting brother to his death:

Police allege that one of the two men charged late on Thursday had been introduced to Islamic State by his brother, who they said was a senior member of the group in Syria.
Communication between the accused man and Islamic State began around April, police said. Under the instruction of the unidentified Islamic State commander, the men built a "fully functioning IED" (improvised explosive device). One of the brothers was unaware that he was carrying a bomb, disguised as a commercial meat mincer, in his luggage, and tried to check it in at the airport, police said. ["Islamic State behind Australians' foiled Etihad meat-mincer bomb plot: police", Reuters, August 4, 2017]

Now the bombshell:

The components for the device, including what Phelan described as a "military-grade explosive," were sent by a senior Islamic State member to the men in Sydney via air cargo from Turkey. An Islamic State commander then instructed the two men who have been charged on how to assemble the device, which police have since recovered, Phelan said. [Associated Press | August 3, 2017] 

No one knows at this stage how the military-grade explosives got from
Turkey to Australia [Image Source] 

Which airline out of Turkey? Which airport? How, if at all, was the incoming consignment checked when it reached Sydney? What do the Turkish authorities say about it?

Turkish Airlines, for the record, carried more passengers to and from Tel Aviv than any other foreign airline serving Tel Aviv back in 2015 when relations between the two countries were frigid. It's a two-way street. At the time, one of Turkish Airlines senior managers said: "The number of flights to Tel Aviv is the greatest on Turkish Airlines network of global routes. It's a profitable route, and it's very important for us to continue promoting it...." Relations are (a little) warmer now between Israel and Turkey since diplomatic relations were restored last summer; we flew with them last year to and from Istanbul and enjoyed the experience.

But as the Australians will now be realizing, it hardly matters whether bilateral relations are warm or cool when you're at risk of terrorists from outside your own country.

The allegation that the Islamic State was able to ship explosives to Australia undetected was troubling, Phelan acknowledged. "All the security agencies and those responsible for security of cargo and so on have put in place extra measures since that time," Phelan said. "It is a concern that it got through, yes, it's hard to deny that."
Justice Minister Michael Keenan said the immigration minister had ordered extra security of air cargo. "You would appreciate it is a very big job to screen, and Australia is a very open economy — there is an enormous number of packages moving both inward and outward on any given day," Keenan told reporters. "But we've taken measures to improve screening." [Associated Press | August 3, 2017] 

The plot then morphed:

After the July 15 bid failed, the men changed tactics and were in the early stages of devising a chemical dispersion device, which they hoped could release highly toxic hydrogen sulfide, Phelan said. No specific targets had been chosen, though an Islamic State member overseas had given the men suggestions about where such devices could be placed, such as crowded areas or on public transport.

Public transport? An Uber car? A train? A jumbo jet? The Manly to Sydney ferry?

In cool, calm Australia, the island continent where air travel is an economic essential, there's genuine and well-founded concern that this deeply disturbing plot

signifies a change in tactics for the Islamic State — from the uncomplicated and bloody attacks we've seen recently to complex, mass casualty attacks against hardened targets... While Australian authorities haven't confirmed the type of explosive police allege Khaled Khayat and his conspirators tried to smuggle onboard the Etihad flight, it is likely it was the same explosive repeatedly used by Al Qaeda in a series of bomb plots targeting the US —PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate). PETN is valued by terrorists because it is hard to detect and has a relatively high yield for its size: about 100 grams can reportedly destroy a car. It's also the explosive of choice for Al Qaeda's most prolific and effective bombmaker, Saudi Arabian citizen Ibrahim al-Asiri. Al-Asiri is a member of Al Qaeda's Yemen-based cell, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and remains one of the most dangerous men in the world. He is responsible for creating the bombs used in most of Al Qaeda's post-9/11 plots against the US, including 'shoe bomber' Richard Reid in 2001, 'underpants bomber' Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in 2009, and a plot involving two bombs smuggled on separate cargo planes bound for the US in 2010. Al-Asiri remains free despite a decade-long manhunt. ["Sydney terror plot: Why police and government concern shouldn't be dismissed as hyperbole", ABC Australia News, August 4, 2017]

If there ever were, it's clear today that there are no safe corners.

08-Oct-15: In Australia, the pistol-wielding youth and his friends start to look like something... mysterious

The victim of the fifteen year-old gunman's lust for
killing: Curtis Cheng, on the left, with family [Image Source]

Because it's happening in far-away Australia, the unfolding events surrounding a murder carried out by a black-robed fifteen year-old boy who arrived in the country as a refugee is not getting much attention away from the location of the savagery.

But there are developments. For the background, see our post: "04-Oct-15: In Sydney, a boy murders a stranger with his pistol and the authorities are lost for words. But there's room for theories"

Sky News has this today:

Four people have been arrested over the murder of a police accountant in Australia which investigators think was terror-related. Detectives believe the suspects, aged from 16 to 22, were involved in planning the killing of Curtis Cheng as he left police headquarters in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta on Friday. The 58-year-old, who had been with the police force's finance department for 17 years, was shot in the back of the head by Farhad Jabar Khalil Mohammad. The 15-year-old gunman, who was born in Iran, was shot and killed at the scene by police. The investigating team have also contacted Turkish police to search for the killer's sister, who left Australia the day before the deadly attack. New South Wales Police deputy commissioner Catherine Burn said: "We suspect that a terrorism event has occurred and we suspect that they may have some knowledge..."

Tim Blair who blogs for the Daily Telegraph from Sydney has some pungent comments about the unwillingness or inability of many to face up to what has happened. Here's what he writes in a post from October 6, 2015 entitled "The ancient Islamic festival of If If":

Founder of the Australian Arabic Council, Joseph Wakim, conducts the traditional post-atrocity ritual of nonsensical evasion: 

When an incident is imbued with a single drop of Islam, it apparently explains everything, and blinds us from asking the right questions. 

The “incident” to which Wakim refers involved a murderer whose mosque attendance was obsessive, who wore traditional Islamic garb on the day he set out to kill innocent people, and who screamed “Allah! Allah!” in the street after shooting a father of two. This wasn’t a “drop of Islam”. It was a reeking bucket. 

We are so hasty to roll out the loaded labels, such as “terrorist” and “gunman”, even when referring to a 15-year-old boy. 

Very well, Joseph. We’ll call him a terrorist gunbaby instead. 

If Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar was a gun-wielding white teenager in school uniform, rather than a brown teenager in a black robe, would we have labelled him a mixed-up kid with mental problems or a radicalised, cold-blooded terrorist? 

If he was a flappy-tailed crustacean, would we call him a lobster? If he was still alive and prancing around outside our house with a gun, would we call the police? If he was developmentally delayed and wrote for Fairfax, would we call him Joseph Wakim? These important theological questions have vexed scholars throughout the ages. 

If a white teenager had opened fire inside a mosque, would we have labelled him an angry misguided youth? 

Beats me. Call me if it happens. 

If we are serious in wanting to break this cycle of violence and acts of terror, we need to stop using dehumanising labels and stop absolving ourselves by shifting blame to Islam. 

What “cycle of violence”? The kid was never provoked. And what “dehumanising labels”? And why the need to absolve ourselves from a crime he committed? 

The complex reality… 

Here we go. 

...is that many factors line up to trigger such violent acts, including broken families, mental health, perceived lack of alternatives, current circumstances, loneliness, detachment, exposure to violent videos and a twisted moral compass that defines heroism as a violent means towards a rewarding end. These are the push factors that recruiters exploit, especially if the recruit is vulnerable and lacks a good parent. 

Not to mention local mosques. 

Youth peers are more likely to derail the radicalisation pathway by planting seeds of doubt and offering other pathways towards redressing injustices. These might include youth groups, political parties, fundraising for charities and letter writing. 

Attention, young brainwashed beheading-ready jihadi children destined for Syria or police stations in Sydney! Might you be more interested in writing a letter instead? Why, of course you are! 

Islamophobia and bombardment with hate messages communicating that Australia does not trust Muslims push “them” to the margins. 

Flip that idea around, son, and you might be on to something. We’ve seen a few hate messages delivered lately, and they’re all coming from one side.

...

Meanwhile this is from yesterday's (Sydney) Daily Telegraph:

The weapon used by teen terrorist Farhad Jabar was believed to be sourced from a Middle Eastern crime gang and police suspect it was handed to the schoolboy at the Parramatta mosque. Details about where he got the gun and its original source were established early in the investigation but the Telegraph was asked by police not to release details until after today’s raids.

04-Oct-15: In Sydney, a boy murders a stranger with his pistol and the authorities are lost for words. But there's room for theories

Fifteen year old boy. dressed in black robes: Scenes from the video showing
last moments of his life, immediately after he murdered a complete stranger
and shouted Allahu Akhbar repeatedly while seeking new victims [Video]

In Sydney, they're trying to come to terms again with terrorism and the loss of lives, and left with more questions than answers.

This past Friday, mid-afternoon, around 4:30 pm, a high school student aged 15, shot dead a police accountant, Curtis Cheng, 58. He had worked in finance for the police for 17 years. The shots were fired from behind and at close range. It's all captured on video [here]. Neighbours of the killer, quoted here, say (in the traditional way) that he was not unusual; in fact, he was "cordial". But the neighbour had never spoken with him.

The shooting was directly outside police headquarters in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta. The boy is said to have been unknown to counter terrorism police before he carried out what they are now calling a "politically motivated" attack. And as far as they can tell, he acted alone.

But conclusions like that tend to be flexible and changeable, and the police are already "exploring every avenue with regard to why he did what he did," according to the police commissioner quoted in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald. They have already formed the view that "his actions were politically motivated and therefore linked to terrorism."

Farad Jabar Khalil Mohammad
before the 15 year old boy executed the murder

Having murdered the unsuspecting police employee, the high school student whose name is Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar kept firing his handgun until he was killed in a shoot-out with three special constables.

According to Australia's ABC, quoted in the same report, the boy's sister left Australia on a Singapore Airlines flight on Thursday bound for Istanbul, evidently attempting to reach Iraq or Syria. She had taken all of her belongings with her.

It's also known the boy attended the nearby Parramatta mosque on Friday afternoon before carrying out the killing. He then changed into a flowing black shirt and black trousers there.

The police commissioner says his team are a "long way from establishing a full picture of the boy" who was of Iraqi-Kurdish background, born in Iran and living in North Parramatta with family.

New South Wales premier Mike Baird asks: "How can someone so young undertake such a chilling act? ...It doesn't make sense. It should never have happened. Obviously we are all lost for words."

16-Jun-15: Australians, troubled by Islamist terror in their midst, are more worried than they have been for years

Australians, when we were growing up there, generally had a sense of being distant from the rest of the world and its problems. It felt a safe place to be. A famous post-apocalyptic novel ["On the Beach", Neville Shute] popular in the late fifties and later the basis for a Hollywood movie depicted a world ravaged by nuclear destruction - and Melbourne the last remaining somewhat-untouched (temporary) haven.

No longer.

Findings based on data collected in a major annual survey has found record levels of insecurity among Australians. Key points from the annual Lowy Institute for International Policy report, released today are that, first, they identify the lowest feeling of safety among Australians, and the sharpest decline in optimism about the nation’s economic performance in the world, in the 11-year history of the poll. A very significant majority (69%) sees Islamic State as a high risk to Australia's security. About the same proportion, 69%, supports Australia’s military participation in Iraq. But at the same time, Australians appear to understand how complex this process is, since only 20% think taking these steps will make their country safe from terrorism in the future.

The authors at Lowy provide some interpretation of the responses received to the questions posed to some 1,200 Australian respondents:

• [I]n 2015... the world seems to be a bleak place to many Australians. Fewer Australians feel safe now that any any time during our 11-year polling history. 
• Only 24% of Australian adults say they feel 'very safe' this year, 18 points down from the 42% who felt very safe when we last asked them in 2010.
• It appears the threat of terrorism is being keenly felt here, after the Martin Place siege late last year [we blogged about that in December 2014 and in January 2015] and the gruesome scenes and confronting news coming out of Iraq and Syria. 
• Terrorism-related risks rank first, second and third out of eight potential risks to Australia's security in the next ten years, with 69% of Australians rating 'the emergence of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria' as a high risk to our security (the highest-ranked risk), and majorities seeing 'terrorist attacks on Australians overseas' and 'home-grown terrorism in Australia' as high risk...
• [Most Australians] (69%) support Australia's participation in military action against Islamic State in Iraq (air strikes and training and support to Iraqi forces), even though a majority believe that such participation increases the risk of terrorism to Australia now, and only 20% say it makes us safer from terrorism in the future.

Inevitably (our view - not Lowy's) some part of the growing anxiety comes from Australians seeing their neighbours' children embracing Islamist values and moving heaven and earth to personally become part of the current Arab-on-Arab bloodbath convulsing vast swathes of the Middle East. 

Australian-born jihadist father, his Australian-born son,
the severed heads that so amuse them, and the question
on the minds of a majority of Australians [Image Source]

For instance, here is part of a May 29, 2015 radio interview given by Assistant Commissioner Tracy Linford of the Victoria Police, and head of its Intelligence & Covert Support Command (Melbourne is the capital of the state of Victoria). She was addressing reports prominently broadcast across Australia's news media two weeks ago (like this one: "More than a dozen young women from Melbourne flee to conflict zones to support Islamic State militants, and in some cases become jihadi brides"]: 

You know, it's difficult for us to collect information from overseas and we have to rely either partner agencies or alternatively you know, what families feed us from their contact with their children who are now overseas so it is hard for us to quantify. I do suspect that there's more than 12 that have actually gone over to support other, you know, jihadi fighters within ISIS but we're not quite sure.
Interviewer: And what is the lure?
Well, I think there's a romanticised view for some young women and if I could press the point that the vast majority of the women that we know who have travelled are very young, you know, they're 18 to 20 years of age.
And I think they're given some sort of romanticised view that, you know, they'll go over there and life will be really good for them, that they will be you know, put on a pedestal, that they're there to help create or help establish the caliphate over there, bear and raise jihadi children, that they'll be respected as women and that their lifestyle will be good.
The reality is that the information we're getting back from overseas is that the lifestyle is not so good at all. [Source: ABC Radio, May 29, 2015]

Sydney's Daily Telegraph ["Full list of Aussie jihadis fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq", April 16, 2015] asserted that ISIS, the self-styled caliphate occupying parts of Syria and Iraq, had emerged as 

a magnet for disillusioned Australian Muslim teenagers consuming hate sermons on their laptops and mobile phones... The Australian fighters are seen as trophies by their jihadi masters – manipulated and used by the IS propaganda machine to attract new supporters. Bankstown apprentice butcher Abdullah Elmir – known as the “Ginger Jihadi” because of his pale-skin and hair colour – has appeared in two videos... The list of Sydney’s jihadists includes a champion boxer, four brothers, a convicted terrorist and standover man, university and high school students, a butcher’s apprentice, a former soldier, street preachers, and a private school girl. Of those who successfully made it to Syria, linking up with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra, almost nine in 10 were young males with an average age of 23... [N]ine impressionable young Muslims from Sydney’s south-west have been killed, blinded by terror recruiters and a call to arms via Twitter, Facebook and Ask.fm. Other Sydney jihadists, who haven’t been identified, are also believed to have been sent to their death... Former NSW Police counter terrorism boss Peter Dein told the dailytelegraph.com.au last year that south-west Sydney had become a hotspot for radical recruitment... [Daily Telegraph, April 16, 2015]

How surprising is all of this? According to one authoritative source - quite:

The London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence reports that between 100 and 250 Australians have joined Sunni militants in Iraq and Syria. Given Australia's vast distance from the region and its population of just 24 million, it is a remarkable number. The center estimates that about 100 fighters came from the United States, which has more than 13 times as many people as Australia... [Business Insider, March 23, 2015]

What ought the Australian authorities to do? Simple solutions are, inevitably, in short supply. But there are some bold criticisms as well as some creative suggestions in a short opinion piece published, again, by the Lowy Institute, just a few weeks ago. Entitled "Muslim radicalisation: Why Australia's strategy is failing, and how to fix it", it's authored by a Pakistani scholar with degrees from Cambridge, George Washington University and Oxford:

The Australian Government has spent millions since the London bombings of 2005 on programs and projects to counter radicalism in Australia's Muslim population, yet the threat appears to be growing. What went wrong? Well, frankly, everything — from the basic premise of what leads and drives radicalisation, to what contains and neutralises it. The fundamental flaw in the Government's counter-radicalisation policy is that it has relied heavily on Muslim community leaders to understand the roots of radicalisation. Not only are the Muslim community leaders no experts on the subject of radicalisation, but they are are also distant from the younger generation of Muslims who undergo an identity crisis triggered internally by Australian society (which functions contrary to their beliefs) and externally by sophisticated propaganda which they digest over social media... The truth is, in Australia and other Western countries, radicalisation of Muslims starts in the home, often unconsciously. Muslim parents in Western societies who want to raise their kids with Islamic ethics and morals go overboard, feeding manipulated Islamic teachings they deem suitable to keep their children 'on track'. But such teachings clash directly with what young Muslims are exposed to at school and in public places. Kids either end up living two different lives or get strangled by an identity crisis... countering radicalisation may need a non-religious and social strategy that goes down to the household level to tackle the identity crisis that gives rise to radicalism...

Addressing the problem within the home. Sounds to us like a serious basis for a different kind of approach.

26-Mar-15: Australia's rising pre-occupation with its death-cultists

A widely-publicized image from Sydney's 2012 Hyde
Park riots [Image Source]

Australia, host to one of the world's most congenial societies, is undergoing wrenching changes that challenge Australians' sense of who they are. Its easy-going, live-and-let-live character has been embraced and increasingly exploited by people with the darkest of motivations and religious passions. In their wake, Australia seems a nation more polarized, more dangerous and more worried than the place we used to call home.

First a statistic, via an Associated Press report today, that expresses the scale of the change.

230 jihad suspects prevented from leaving Australia | Rod McGuirk | AP | March 26, 2015 | Counterterrorism squads have prevented 230 suspected jihadis from departing Australian airports for the Middle East this month, including at least three teenage boys, officials said Wednesday... Since counterterrorism units were attached to eight Australian airports in August, 86,000 travelers have been questioned and 230 people prevented from flying on suspicion that they were headed for the battlefields of Iraq and Syria to fight with groups including Islamic State, Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament. Experts disagree about why Islamic State had been so effective recruiting in Australia, which is widely regarded as a multicultural success story, with an economy in an enviable 24th straight year of continuous growth.
The London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence... center estimates that about 100 fighters came from the United States, which has more than 13 times as many people as Australia... “It is absolutely critical that the people of Australia appreciate that the death cult is reaching out to vulnerable and impressionable young people,” [Abbott] said, referring to the Islamic State group. “The death cult is reaching out, seeking effectively to brainwash people online.”

A report in today's Australian looks at a piece of the essential infrastructure that is so effectively reaping a harvest in gullible would-be Islamist foot soldiers who ache to become cannon fodder in the Arab-on-Arab slaughterhouses of the Middle East.

Online extremist propaganda is growing at an alarming rate | Sarah Martin | THE AUSTRALIAN | March 26, 2015 | A forum on extremism and social media yesterday at the Australian National University heard that Islamic State’s online promotion of its “brand and a lifestyle” was challenging the ability of authorities to respond effectively. The Australian Security Research­ Centre event heard that the growth of extremist material online was growing expon­entially faster than the ability of authorities to take it down. The government has promised a “counter-narrative” strategy and the forum was told this would include the need to undermine the intellectual arguments propagated by Islamic State, while promoting the “good story” of Australian ­society... Charles Sturt University national security lecturer Levi West, who is an expert in the use of technology in jihadist terrorism, said Islamic State had become the “market leaders” in online propaganda... The forum heard the government was taking a four-tiered approach targeting vulnerable people and community groups in an attempt to prevent high-risk individuals becoming radicalised. The strategy includes programs aimed at education, social ­inclusion and economic participation, and a focus on combating extremism online... Outlining a range of methods used to disseminate Islamic State’s message — from high production videos including militants giving “candy to kids” to how-to guides for foreign fighters — Professor West said there had been a “sudden and enormous spike” in extremist propaganda in the past year that was almost impossible to control. He said instead the government should seek to use intelligence from ­Islamic State sites, rather than shut them down.

The distribution power of the Internet and easy, anonymous access to its content, is central to the missionary strategy of the jihadists.

Islamic State launches step-by-step dossier for Aussie jihadists on how to get to frontline in Syria | Armando Cordoba | March 22, 2015 | News Corp Australia Network | The Islamic State has launched a step-by-step dossier to help would-be Australian jihadists flee the country and fight alongside the terror group. The online guide, posted to sympathisers’ social media network on March 14, includes details and advice on how to use a vast online support network on home soil and, ultimately, slip through security cracks... The new dossier, provided by an IS sympathiser, stresses the importance of contacts for foreign fighters travelling to Turkey from their country of origin. It even provides a series of ‘Useful Twitter contacts who are in IS to Private Direct message’...The dossier says that between 2012 to 2014 the most common method of crossing the border from Turkey to Syria was to enter Turkey, make contact with IS in Syria, then cross from the Bab al-Hawa and Baab al-Salaam crossing between Turkey and Syria. Now, due to heightened security in Turkey, IS fighters are directed to get a hotel room on arrival in Turkey and contact their Twitter correspondence ‘and they will together go to Sanliurfa in Turkey’...The dossier amplifies the importance IS places on the internet.

The how-to-get-to-Syria report illustrates, in passing, how those Islamism-minded would-be warriors, headed for the killing fields, become that way because of a claimed insensitivity on the part of Canberra's decision-makers:

Silma Ihram, a member of the Australian Muslim Women’s Association based in Sydney, says youths are drawn to IS because the Australian government "continues to create an us versus them" mentality... [News Corp]

Ms Ihram, born Anne Frances Beaumont, is an articulate advocate for racial tolerance and the notion that it isn't Moslems but just some angry peripheral people that give Islam a bad name. A 2006 Australian movie review called her "Erin Brockovich in a hijab". If she's right, this is all bound to end up peacefully and well, and the "them" (from that us -vs- them mentality she cites) will calm down and get on with living constructive lives. But it could all get a lot more serious if she's wrong.

05-Mar-15: Remembering those who stand silently outside

Volunteer security personnel patrolling the perimeter of a Jewish
community building... that could be almost anywhere (Shomrim is the
Hebrew word for guards) [Image Source]

The killing of a Danish volunteer standing guard outside a Copenhagen synagogue by a terrorist gunman of Palestinian Arab "origin" who, in the opaque language favoured by many news editors, had become "radicalized" while serving prison time for stabbing someone, has thrown some light on the phenomenon of Jewish communities more and more required - and determined - to protect their lives from similar malevolents.

Dan Uzan's murder on the night of February 14-15, 2015 came as he patrolled a Jewish facility in sub-freezing temperatures while a family celebration - a bat mitzvah with dozens of children taking part - was happening inside. Finn Norgaard, a 55-year-old Danish documentary maker, was shot dead and three police officers were wounded in a nearby attack some hours earlier executed by the same perpetrator.

It's striking to us how Denmark's Jewish community, alive to the danger, had asked that the police raise the level of their alertness to attacks like the one that eventuated - but were rebuffed. Associated Press reported a month before the lethal attacks that:

Denmark's Jewish community has asked for a police presence outside the Copenhagen synagogue during services and when students arrive and leave the city's Jewish school following the terror attacks in Paris. Community chairman Dan Rosenberg Asmussen says he made the request Wednesday to Justice Minister Mette Frederiksen who stopped short of making any promises to the country's 7,000-strong Jewish community. She said Denmark's security agency would make reconsider security at Jewish institutions. Frederiksen said the attacks in Paris made "us painfully aware of the importance that our Jewish fellow citizens can feel safe." [NY Times, "Danish Jews Want Police Outside Synagogue, School", January 14, 2015]

Volunteer security people, like Dan Uzan (and like groups in Melbourne, Sydney, Brooklyn, Southern California, throughout the United Kingdom and many other places), are part of the answer, and regularly place their lives and well-being at risk in Jewish communities throughout the world today. The reasons why are sadly obvious to anyone alert to the rising threats.

In the Australian parliament earlier today (Thursday), Michael Danby MP paid tribute to the hundreds of volunteer guards who do this in his country, and elsewhere, every day. In an email this morning, he noted that

There is a vast program in our country called the Secure Schools Programme, which I convinced the previous Labor Government to adopt. The programme funds the protection of Australia Jewish institutions, particularly so that events like Copenhagen, the attacks in Brussels and France, as well as the earlier jihadist murders at the Chabad school in Toulouse, might be prevented. The current Government continued this program and, matching a Labor election commitment, has extended this program to funding security guards and I’m relieved that the Government has finally adopted that. 

An audio track of his speech is online here. In an accompanying press release yesterday, he wrote of how Australia had recognized by 2007 that schools, in particular, were "at risk of terrorist or hate-crime attacks" and needed "to build infrastructure to protect themselves." He was instrumental in moving the Labor government of the day to provide $35 million to fund the investment.

One of Michael Danby's key points is that the news media (he focused on Australia's ABC, but the problem extends well beyond Australia's shores) fail to humanize the victims. The lives of the perpetrators, by contrast, routinely get under-the-skin scrutiny amid the regulation search for "root causes" and a deeper understanding of the mysterious factors that turned a quiet law-abiding slob into a gun-toting, religion-spouting killer.

The effects are not hard to divine. In the case of the Danish terror murders, they include the fact that when the Jewish victim of the Copenhagen shooting attack was buried, 

"Security was tight... with police out in force with sniffer dogs and snipers posted on nearby rooftops." [Telegraph UK, February 18, 2015]

That was the Jewish funeral. The murdering gunman, killed by Danish police in an early-morning shoot-out, was given a respectful Islamic funeral. Newsweek reported that

700 to 1,000 mourners attended the funeral of [Omar El-Hussein,] the gunman who shot dead two and injured five others in the Danish capital earlier this month, prompting concern and anger among Danes and Danish Jews... The ceremony took place at the Islamic Society of Denmark in Copenhagen following Friday prayers and was followed by the burial outside the city at a Muslim cemetery in the suburb of Brøndby... The funeral was open to the public, although witnesses described the attendees to local Danish media as mostly Muslim young men, with many “wearing large black coats, having covered their faces”. The Copenhagen Police sent a press release before the event urging attendees to show due respect.

Flowers had earlier been placed at the spot where the killer was stopped. Here's a photo. Given the clear message they convey, it makes one wonder whether hate-language and incitement to racism and murder ought to include the placing of bouquets.

23-Feb-15: Lessons learned, and not learned, from an Australian encounter with jihad

Australia's Martin Place siege in December 2014 was a front-page event
everywhere. Now it's time for the lessons learned [Image Source]

In Australia, the government says it is prepared to act in the face of the growing pile of evidence that terrorism is not only not retreating but metastasizing and reaching places that no one expected even a short time ago. Extracts (all direct quotes) from an Aljazeera report today:

• [Prime minister Tony] Abbott said the threat at home was getting worse with security agencies currently running more than 400 high-priority "counterterrorism" investigations, which is more than double the number just one year ago.
• Canberra says it has since carried out a series of raids amid the alleged departure of at least 110 Australian nationals to Iraq and Syria to fight with ISIL.
• "By any measure, the threat to Australia is worsening," the prime minister said in an address following the release of a government review into December's  deadly siege  at a cafe in Sydney. "The number of foreign fighters is up. The number of known sympathisers and supporters of extremism is up. The number of potential home-grown terrorists is rising... In proclaiming a caliphate, the Islamist death-cult [referring to ISIL] has declared war on the world."
• [He] announced that his government will tighten immigration laws and crack down on groups that incite hatred under a raft of counterterrorism measures introduced in a bid to combat the threat from "home-grown terrorists". The measures announced on Monday would revoke or suspend Australian citizenship for dual nationals who fight alongside "terror groups" overseas, axe welfare payments and consular services to those involved in terrorism and clamp down on "hate preachers," or groups that incite religious or racial hatred.
• "Even if the flow of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq stopped today, there's an Australian cohort of hardened jihadists who are intent on radicalising and influencing others," said Abbott. "The signs are ominous."
• The government review found no major faults with multiple agencies that failed to detect Monis was a threat, despite the fact that he was out on bail on sexual assault and accessory to murder charges. But Abbott acknowledged the system itself had failed, saying Monis should never have been allowed into Australia, should not have been out on bail and should not have been able to get a gun.

(Monis is the Australian Islamist, an immigrant from Iran, who died in a hail of police gunfire on December 15, 2014 after holding hostages for 16 hours inside central Sydney's Cafe Lindt.)

The hard talk and plain logic of the Australian political leadership today makes a lot more sense to us than some of the initial assessments appearing in the media after the Martin Place Sydney killings. At that time, prime minister Abbott was quoted saying:

"This was the act of a deeply unstable person with a long history of violence and mental illness. This was the act of someone who is way beyond any mainstream – any mainstream – and has been rightly, absolutely repudiated by all of the communities of Australia.” [source]

But with the taste of real, personal, existential fear still bitter in the mouths of many Australians, and the realization that "deeply unstable person" might not be the most insightful way to think about the threats, some difficult questions are left after all the speeches, assurances and post-event findings. 

An analysis in the Sydney Morning Herald today, by its chief political correspondent, for instance ["Sydney siege report: Biggest question left unanswered in review"]:

Specifically on Monis, the National Security Hotline had taken 18 calls from concerned members of the public regarding his website  in the six days before the December 15 siege at the Lindt Cafe. Crucially, Monis had announced his conversion from Shia to Sunni Islam - the sect to which Islamic State and al-Qaeda belong. Those complaints were referred to ASIO, the Australian Federal Police, and in some cases, the NSW Police. Each was dismissed... [SMH today]

And

Remember the context. Australia had just had its national security alert system moved from medium to high. A terrorist attack in Australia was regarded as likely. The advent of IS had presaged a dangerous new threat: spontaneous "lone-wolf" attacks licensed by a one-way propaganda model where extremists were invited to initiate whatever harm they could. It had already seen some deadly attacks abroad and sparked "chatter" of similar intent here... This was a systemic failure. [SMH today]

We happen to have received a response this morning from the Australian government in Canberra about Australian support for media glorification of our daughter's murderer. (Our daughter was born in Australia.) Today's letter, about which we plan to write later, gives assurances that in our view are without a basis in fact, and largely misses the points we think Australians should be confronting. Even when faced with evidence that Australian policy is providing a fig-leaf for the incubation of terror and terrorists, its officials choose (like many governments and NGOs) to back off. We can see why this might seem right to them; but it's not. (The circumstances and background are here.)

But what seems right to a civil servant or a security official from a distance might be considerably less right when immediate mortal danger and actual casualties stare you in the face. That's why a comment of prime minister Abbott's yesterday ought to be on the minds of the Australian officials with whom we are currently exchanging viewpoints:

"Precisely where we draw the line in the era of terrorism will need to be reconsidered," he said... "We need to ask ourselves, at what stage do we need to change the tipping point from protection of the individual to the safety of the community? Obviously we need to look at what are the relevant triggers for concern and ask ourselves what should be the consequence if concerns are triggered." [ABC Radio, February 22, 2015]

His questions are worth pondering in Canberra and in Amman and practically anywhere that terrorism is emerging (i.e. everywhere). In an age of rampant, expanding jihad, who can afford systemic failures?

11-Feb-15: Sydney counter-terror raids said to frustrate imminent Islamist atrocity

Kiad [Daily Telegraph]

In Sydney, Australia, where memories are still fresh of a traumatizing siege and multiple deaths that paralyzed the city in mid December, counter-terrorism police say they arrested two men during Tuesday on charges that they were preparing to carry out another Islamist terror attack the same day.

The government's national terror threat level has been at "high" for some months ["18-Sep-14: In Australia, massive police raids today seek to prevent beheadings"] when police, acting on information that supporters of ISIS/Islamic State planned to conduct a public beheading, carried out the first in a series of ongoing raids across western Sydney and in the Queensland capital, Brisbane. Those were were the largest raids of their kind in Australian history, .

This comes from Reuters:

Police said the men, aged 24 and 25, were arrested after a raid on a home in a western Sydney suburb on Tuesday and had been charged with planning a terrorist act. "When we did the search of the premises, a number of items were located, including a machete, a hunting knife, a home-made flag representing the proscribed terrorist organization IS, and also a video which depicted a man talking about carrying out an attack," New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn told reporters. "We will allege that both of these men were preparing to do this act yesterday," she said. The men were not known to police, Burn said. "This is indicative of the threat that we now have to live with and which we are now having to deal with"... [Reuters]

In The Australian newspaper, the coverage ["Two men arrested in NSW over ‘public beheading’ plot"] is more explicit, quoting Australia's prime minister who says things are going to get worse before they get better (we agree). He told Parliament 65 Australian passports have been cancelled in the course of the current alert.

BBC says the suspects "chose not to appear at an initial hearing on Wednesday, where bail was formally refused... New South Wales Premier Mike Baird urged vigilance and said the alleged plot was "beyond disturbing... Certainly something catastrophic was avoided yesterday and for that we should be very thankful,".

Sydney's Daily Telegraph says the two men, Omar Al-Kutobi, 24 and a student of computer science, and Mohammad Kiad, 25, were arrested at the "granny" flat (a converted garage, according to ABC Radio) where they lived in Fairfield, a Western suburb, around 4 in the afternoon. The search of their small flat continued until the early hours of this morning (Wednesday). Two-thirds of Fairfield's population were born outside Australia [Wikipedia].

The two suspects, not at prayer [Daily Telegraph]

The neighbour is quoted saying Kiad seemed not to work "but may have been studying for a forklift licence, and often visited a nearby recreational centre to do weight-lifting." He is quoted by the paper saying "the pair were deeply religious, praying five times a day."

Al Kutobi is said to have gotten Australian citizenship in 2014 after being given refuge on fleeing his native Iraq. Kiad,is described as "a nurse who moved from Kuwait in 2012", has the immigration status of permanent resident.

How their religious practices play into this news is not clarified, but the general flavour of the reports - in a country that takes its preference for tolerance and fair play seriously - is ominous. The Joint Counter Terrorism Taskforce acted on information that an attack was imminent, and that the pair had armed themselves with a machete and a large hunting knife as well as a self-made ISIS flag, now - in view of December's tragic events - a well-recognized icon in Australia.

A TV news report embedded in the Telegraph article adds that a video was seized in which one of the two speaks of an ISIS attack, implying this strengthened suspicions that something almost immediate and lethal was on the way.

01-Jan-15: In Australia, facing up to reality of local Islamist terror

Hostage flees the Sydney siege, December 15, 2014
[Image Source]

As far from Europe and the Middle East as Australia is, the lethal threats that Islamist terrorism poses are as relevant there as practically everywhere else. 

Australian death cult jihadists who fought with Islamic State in Syria before travel was banned to the region have returned home to roam our streets as free men because of a legal loophole. More than 20 Australian terrorists, who have been militarised and brutalised, have returned from the Middle East and are now free in the community. It is understood about half escaped any form of charges because proving what Australian jihadists have done overseas is difficult. The government introduced new counterterrorism laws giving Foreign Minister Julie Bishop the power to ban travel to particular terrorist regions, but those who are already in the region cannot be jailed for flying there because the laws are not retrospective. National Security agencies are closely monitoring the men. Nineteen of the 25 Australians who returned home from Afghanistan after fighting with Al-Qaeda were later involved in some form of terror activity in Australian. [Australian death cult jihadists who fought with Islamic State in Syria return to roam our streets | Daniel Meers | The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) | January 02, 2015]

The so-called lone-wolf Islamist who took hostages in a Sydney cafe last month has been adopted as a poster child for the cause by the ISIS online propaganda/recruitment publication Dabiq. This comes from its latest edition, as quoted in The Guardian and the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday:

"This month, an attack was carried out in Sydney by Man Haron Monis, a Muslim who resolved to join the mujāhidīn of the Islamic State in their war against the crusader coalition,.. He did not do so by undertaking the journey to the lands of the Khilāfah and fighting side-by-side with his brothers but rather, by acting alone and striking the kuffār [non-believers] where it would hurt them most – in their own lands and on the very streets that they presumptively walk in safety.
"It didn't take much; he got hold of a gun and stormed a cafe taking everyone inside hostage. Yet in doing so, he prompted mass panic, brought terror to the entire nation, and triggered an evacuation of parts of Sydney's central business district."

According to the Sydney Morning Herald report (December 30, 2014): "The magazine features a full-page colour photograph of Monis and contains quotes attributed to him on his conversion from Shia to Sunni Islam. Past editions of Dabiq... urged would-be jihadists to keep their plots small and their strategies simple, involving as few people as possible."

Monis on the cover of a Melbourne newspaper
today

And in the Daily Mail UK they point out how the ISIS homage to the dead terrorist flexibly

sidesteps the issue of Monis's dubious morality, which included outstanding charges for more than 50 sexual offences, saying: 'The fact is ... that any allegations leveled against a person concerning their past are irrelevant as long as they hope for Allah’s mercy and sincerely repent from any previous misguidance.' IS had called on Muslims to kills disbelievers in the West, including Australia.

Readers of The Guardian report get a sense of how the glorification of violent thugs like the Iranian hostage-taker serves to attract shiftless young people on troubled trajectories:

Monis’s actions are framed as redemptive, cleansing the fringe, self-styled peace activist of a past that included allegations of fraud, accessory to murder and numerous sexual assaults. “Any allegations leveled against a person concerning their past are irrelevant as long as they hope for Allah’s mercy and sincerely repent from any previous misguidance,” the article says.

Australia's Attorney-General George Brandis, quoted earlier this week [source], said about 20 Australians have already been killed fighting in Iraq and Syria. About seventy Australians are currently there among the ranks of the ISIS Islamists, he said. Which brings us back to the lethal threat this poses, according to the report at the top of this page.

23-Dec-14: In Australia (not only there), it's getting harder to ignore a rising tide

Image Source

We have some serious concerns about the sense Australians are making of last week's Martin Place Sydney siege. So we're quite focused on today's report about how its political leadership is preparing the nation.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Tuesday warned of a heightened level of “terrorist chatter” in the aftermath of the fatal Sydney cafe siege and said another attack was considered likely. “A briefing from the security agencies today indicated that there has been a heightened level of terrorist chatter in the aftermath of the Martin Place siege,” he said following a meeting of his National Security Committee. “We don’t know when and how an attack may come, but we do know there are people with the intent and the capability to carry out further attacks.” [source]

Australia’s terror alert level has not been raised above its current high, but

Abbott cautioned that “at this level, an attack is likely.” “I am alerting people to the fact that the terror threat remains high and as you all understand, at this level, an attack is likely,” he said. “That’s why it’s important that people remain alert and aware as well as reassured that our police and security agencies are doing everything they humanly can to keep us safe." ...At high, a terrorist attack is seen as likely. An extreme alert level means an attack is imminent or has occurred. Australia has not officially branded the Sydney siege as a terrorist attack. Abbott said he was “not going to speculate” about any specific future attacks, emphasizing only that “there has been a heightened level of chatter amongst people who we would normally think of as terrorist sympathizers”. [source]

He added this:

 "There are people who would do us harm, and can do us harm." [source]

Perhaps that's obvious, and maybe even trite. But since he is in a good position to know, it's valuable information for people to have. And on the whole that blunt assessment seems to make more sense than one he shared with the nation just a few days ago:

Abbott added that he had not heard of anyone saying the Sydney attack was a justifiable response to something that Australia might have done. “I haven’t heard anyone say that and frankly anyone who does even think that is dead wrong – absolutely dead wrong,.. This was the act of a deeply unstable person with a long history of violence and mental illness. This was the act of someone who is way beyond any mainstream – any mainstream – and has been rightly, absolutely repudiated by all of the communities of Australia.” [source]

We're left wondering whether Mr Abbott knows about Australian support for the glorification of our daughter's murderer, and what he would do if he and his advisers knew. We wrote about that here.

22-Dec-14: Evil, good and lone wolf attacks in Australia

Man Haron Monis, prior to the Sydney siege 

Over on the website of the Brisbane Courier-Mail, the major newspaper in the northern Australian state of Queensland, there's an oped today written by Rowan Dean who happens to be the editor of The Spectator Australia. His piece is entitled "Islamism, the evil that dwells in our nation". He deals mostly with the process of internal reflection (or its absence, depending on how you view this) by Australian society in the wake of last week's Martin Place Sydney siege.

The opening words:

"The terrifying realisation following the murderous siege in Sydney last week was that through our own craven stupidity, and cowardly political correctness, we as a society have permitted and encouraged a genuine “evil” to prosper and thrive among us. “Evil” is, of course, a strong word; it can equally be applied to a kiddie-fiddling priest, a deranged psychopathic serial killer or a clerical officer in the backroom at Auschwitz. But there really is no other word capable of fully describing the Islamist/jihadist mindset and ideology. In a nutshell (as it were) Islamists believe that their belief system justifies as much cruelty, bloodshed, death, rape, murder, fear, terror, slavery and violence being visited upon nonbelievers as they see fit for whatever their particular purpose."

In many parts of the Australian discourse this past week, the idea has taken root that the hostage-taking self-styled “Mufti Sheik Haron” was mentally unbalanced and that this, to the exclusion of anything else, was what Australians interested in understanding what had happened needed to know.

For instance, Australia's prime minister

Tony Abbott has refused to link Sydney hostage taker Man Haron Monis with Islam, pointing out: “We don’t blame the pope for the IRA and we don’t blame the Catholics living next door for the folly and madness of some people who may claim Christian motivations”... He said Monis was “a deeply unstable person with a long history of violence and mental illness... someone who was way beyond any mainstream … and who has been rightly repudiated by all the mainstream of Australia”. [The Guardian, December 16, 2014]

Move along, folks, in other words. Nothing much to see here.

That's not Rowan Dean's view. He points out, with complete justification in our view, that there are real and emerging mortal threats here to ordinary Australians and their way of life, and they are not being well understood:

What damage can one lone nutter do?” The answer is simple. Cripple our way of life, our values, our enlightenment, our humanity. Last week it was a coffee shop that saw the death of two wonderful Australians. But they are not the first. In 2001, at a pizza shop, a sweet, vivacious Aussie girl called Malki Roth also lost her life. In a bustling street in Jerusalem. The madman that time was actually a mad woman, called Ahlam Tamimi, a Palestinian “activist”, who also happened to be a TV presenter, who, after driving the suicide bomber to the pizza hut (which she had carefully researched and knew was always full of kids) then went back to her TV station and bragged on air about the deaths... Evil. There isn’t actually another name for it. ["Islamism, the evil that dwells in our nation", Courier-Mail, Australia, today]

Our daughter Malki, 2001, shortly before she
was murdered

It touches on personal and very painful issues for us. Here's a brief note we posted in the Courier-Mail article's comments section:

That "sweet, vivacious Aussie girl called Malki Roth" is my daughter. The "TV presenter" "activist" who engineered the massacre was sentenced to 16 terms of life in prison. People who met her behind bars told me she's a frighteningly psychotic individual. But today she is free. She travels widely and often throughout the Arab world, and advocates in the name of Hamas for more Islamist terror and killings.
Against that background, it's deeply disturbing to see the Martin Place terror attack dismissed as the work of a "lone wolf" nut case. If he was that, there are many more like him on the way. They're ready to do the same and worse.
Australia is playing a supportive role in that process without realizing it. Just a few days before the Sydney siege, one of the most important schools of journalism in the Arab world honoured the "TV presenter" by declaring her to be their "success model". I came across it and wrote about it here: http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/11-dec-14-why-is-it-not-newsworthy-when.html
I think it's a great pity the Australian media appear to be unaware of it. 

Arnold Roth - Jerusalem

As of now, there is no response from the Aussie readers of the Rowan Dean piece or from its author.