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Associate Professor Adam Dolnik and Sam Mullins

Opinion - Home-grown terrorism: threat that’s here to stay

By Sam Mullins and Associate Professor Adam Dolnik from UOW’s Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention. Mr Mullins is researching home-grown terrorism for his PhD thesis while Professor Adam Dolnik is CTCP’s Director of Research Programs and an internationally-recognised expert on terrorism.

Australia faced the spectre of alleged "home-grown terrorism" when Australian Federal Police carried out raids on a suspected Islamic terror cell in Melbourne in August.

Five men (all Australian citizens - four of Somalian and one of Lebanese heritage) were arrested and charged with terrorism-related offences, and are in custody awaiting their next court appearance on October 26.

It is alleged the men were plotting an armed attack on the Holsworthy Army Base in south-western Sydney.

There is an emerging pattern in other Western nations that indicates the threat from Islamist terrorists comes overwhelmingly from young males of varying ethnic, national or religious backgrounds who are often citizens of the countries they choose to attack.

The Madrid bombings of 2004, the murder of Theo Van Gogh on the streets of Amsterdam in the same year, the London bombings of 2005, and numerous other examples in Europe, the US and Canada, all involved citizens or long-term residents of these countries.

It is a pattern that has been increasingly evident in the multitude of terror plots uncovered since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Moreover, jihadi profiles tend to reflect the unique history of immigration of the country in question. For example, Pakistan, which lies at the epicentre of the global jihadi movement, has been heavily represented in the background of British Islamists.

Similarly, in France perpetrators and suspects have mostly been of Algerian origin, and in Spain, Moroccan.

People of Lebanese heritage make up only around 1% of Australia’s total population but are the largest ethnic group among Australian Muslims. The would-be terrorists arrested in Melbourne and Sydney during Operation Pendennis in 2004 were largely of Lebanese descent.

There are only a few thousand Somalis living in Australia. However, there have been a number of cases of Somali jihadis operating in Western countries.

Somalian involvement in global jihad against the West is partly a reflection of a continued Islamist insurgency and instability in the region, which has increased immigration to Western countries.

However, these amount to little more than generalities, and past involvement in Islamist terrorism of Western converts - among them Australians Jack Roche and David Hicks - serves as a reminder that anyone can become a terrorist.

Once a home-grown group has formed and the decision to pursue violent jihad is made, leading members frequently attempt to make contact with organised terrorist groups overseas in order to gain training and advice.

Two of the London bombers of July, 2005, travelled to Pakistan where they most likely received operational instruction from militants there. Members of the Melbourne group are alleged to have travelled to Somalia and to have been in contact with al-Shabaab, which is a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation with suspected links to al-Qaeda.

However, the nature of links to foreign terrorists remains speculative and should not necessarily be interpreted as overseas control. Despite seeming to have made contact with militants abroad, the London bombers appeared to have devised their own plan of attack and to have been operating autonomously. This is typical of home-grown groups in the West.

Seeking religiously framed endorsement for acts of terrorism is also a well-established practice among Islamist militants.

Although recent terrorist attacks in Western countries have mostly been against “soft” civilian targets such as public transportation, military barracks have been targets previously. Military bases were targeted by Western-based Islamists in Belgium in 2001, in the US in 2005 and 2007, and in Germany in 2007 (all of which were thwarted). More recently, in June this year a lone Islamist gunman opened fire outside an army-navy recruiting centre in the US, killing one soldier and wounding another. He is said to have been motivated by perceived US injustices against Muslims.

Few details regarding alleged motives in the current case have been revealed. However, the alleged targets and the suspects’ ideological background suggest a protest against the involvement of Australia’s military in overseas conflicts.

Australia was involved in the UN peace-keeping operation in Somalia from 1992-1994 and in January 2009 (when the terror investigation in Melbourne began) announced plans to join the UN anti-piracy operations off the coast of the Horn of Africa. However, these actions are unlikely to have been prominent sources of motivation.

The lawless situation in Somalia has made it a favoured destination of “global” Islamist fighters, motivated by a general desire to strike at the US and its allies, often driven by the symbolic value of military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Such grievances have been consistently cited since the inception of the global jihadi movement and were referred to in court by one of the current detainees, Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, who declared: “You call us terrorists when you send troops to kill innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan!”

It is significance that the deadliest terrorist attack of the past year, last November’s Mumbai hotel assaults which resulted in more than 170 fatalities, was a fidayen operation where the terrorists, using conventional weapons, proceeded to kill as many people as possible before they themselves were killed by the police. The Mumbai raids demonstrated the efficacy of this kind of attack and may well prove a source of inspiration for home-grown terrorists for whom conventional weapons may be more easily obtained and used.

Suicide bomb attacks are not only more difficult to organise but may have also lost some of their shock-appeal. Suicidal shooting-sprees thus represent a degree of operational adaptation among home-grown terrorists and add a new dimension of terror in the West.

As further details of the Melbourne investigation come to light the extent to which the group fits into patterns of contemporary home-grown terrorism will be revealed with more clarity. As things stand the investigation is nevertheless confirmation of a continuing and insidious threat to Australian security that is here to stay.