Terror threat level to remain

The national terrorism threat level is unlikely to be lifted on the back of Sydney’s church stabbing.

Terrorism experts say the current threat level of “possible” reinforces that there is a threat particularly from young people who have been radicalised or lone wolf actors. And there are still about 400 people on the national terror watch list.

The 16-year-old alleged to have stabbed two priests at the Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, in Sydney’s west, on Monday was not on the list.

But Mike Burgess, the boss of domestic spy agency ASIO, said on Tuesday that while one incident didn’t mean the level would be raised, he had always maintained that the threat remained.

Terrorism expert Greg Barton, from Deakin University, said that position may change if further information came to light that others were involved in the background of the church attack. “While he was a lone actor, he is not alone,” Professor Barton.

He said law enforcement and intelligence would be combing through the attacker’s background and networks.

“If they find a large social network, then there is a big problem. I would say watch this space,” he said.

In his annual national threat assessment address in February, Mr Burgess said ASIO was investigating multiple individuals who had discussed conducting terrorism in Australia.

And “terrorism remains a threat – a real threat, a pervasive threat – even with a lower national threat level,” he said.

“While Australia’s terrorist threats have reduced in scale, they have increased in complexity,” ,” Mr Burgess said.

“We have seen ideologically motivated extremists switching between ideologies and merging components from different ones to create new, hybrid beliefs; a perverse ‘choose your own adventure’ approach to radicalisation.”

The national terrorism alert system has five threat levels – not expected, possible, probable, expected and certain.