Written by 
A “handful” of suspected cells or individuals among 200 active counter-terrorism investigations in Australia are being targeted for intensive monitoring by authorities, the AFP’s security chief told a conference today.
“There is not 200 people out there just about ready to strap themselves (with a bomb),” Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner, counter-terrorism, Steve Lancaster said.
Mr Lancaster said concerns were held for a “handful at the extreme end” that may have the potential to make a “quantum leap” into acting on threatening rhetoric about violent jihad.
“There’s a lot of people who talk it, and talk it up … a lot of those are probably young, aggressive men,” he said, drawing parallels to the recent Sydney riots where a small group sought confrontation with police.
Mr Lancaster, who helped lead investigations into David Hicks, Jack Thomas and Mamdouh Habib, said a worrying situation was that 60 per cent of the 38 prosecutions for terrorism in Australia were against people of Lebanese background, while Lebanese Muslims accounted for only 20 per cent of the domestic Islamic population.
Small numbers of Australian Islamists were also suspected of continuing to fly overseas to engage in jihad, training and conflicts.
“We have Australians that go overseas and train and fight in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan,” he told a Monash University counter-terrorism conference.
Mr Lancaster said there were concerns some of those individuals would return and help radicalise others.
The threat, particularly home-grown rather than directed from al-Qaida or other terror groups overseas, remained.
”That is the real threat that is still out there in Australia.”
Mr Lancaster said “lone wolf” threats were of particular danger because those considering larger, “spectacular” terror strikes involving more cell members were sometimes identified “like tracking elephant in snow”.
But security authorities should not just restrict their monitoring to Islamic extremists, he said.
He said engagement in mosques and the Islamic community was the key to preventing attacks, and fellow Muslims had actively attempted to divert individuals away from extremism.
Prosecution and jail for extremists should not be considered the “end state” but “the primary objective is to stop people moving on that continuum (to extremism) as early as we can,” he said.
–
