Canada and Australia share similar terror challenges
National security: Both countries scramble to keep up with threat of homegrown radicals
Australians have been gutted by the shocking murders of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent and Cpl. Nathan Cirillo.
They have asked themselves: “What if those attacks were to happen here? Would we be able to cope?”
The empathy and the anxiety of Australians has been demonstrated by how often they openly expressed their profound sorrow to Canadian visitors about what happened in St- Jean- sur- Richelieu and Ottawa. It is also seen in tightened security measures around the Australian Parliament and in a rush to enact and enforce stronger laws to combat terrorism, including more than $ 500 million in fresh funding for security agencies to keep much closer tabs on terrorists and potential terrorists.
One of the new laws, used by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government for the first time Thursday, makes it a criminal offence for Australians to travel to Syria’s Islamic State- controlled province of al- Raqqa.
Canberra appears to have more concerns than Ottawa, where the RCMP is investigating about 90 Canadians as threats to national security.
By the end of 2012, Australia — which has 40 per cent fewer people than Canada — had about 100 citizens in Syria affiliated with radical groups in the region.
About 30 of those Australians are believed to have returned home since then. But the total number of Australians in Syria and Iraq is believed to have risen to as high as 200. Several of these jihadists are believed to hold senior posts in Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and Jabhat al- Nusra — alQaida’s branch in Syria.
The most notorious of the terrorists from Down Under at the moment is Khaled Sharrouf, who joined al- Nusra and then switched to Islamic State. The heavy- set 33- year- old Australian became what the Sydney Morning Herald described as “the poster boy for Western jihadism” after he tweeted a photograph from Syria of his seven- year- old son holding a severed head with the caption, “That’s my boy.”
One of Sharrouf’s daughters “liked” an image that her father posted on social media of the World Trade Center burning above the caption: “September 11 is the best day of my life.”
Australian authorities have regarded Sharrouf, a diagnosed schizophrenic, as a serious threat since 2005 when he was charged with possessing six clocks and 140 batteries that were to have been used in a bombing. The attack planned by Sharrouf and eight co- accused was thwarted, and he served 47 months in jail.
Last November, using his brother’s passport, Sharrouf eluded Australia’s exit controls — which are stricter than Canada’s — and headed to Syria. Early this year his wife, a Muslim convert, and their five children left Australia for Syria, too, travelling through Malaysia and Turkey, according to The Australian newspaper in a front- page article entitled: “Home in hell: Sharrouf family values.”
There are “absolutely similarities” between the Sharroufs and the family of Omar Khadr — the Canadian terrorist convicted of murdering a U. S. army medic in Afghanistan — according to Tobias Freakin of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
As Sharrouf has done by moving his family from Sydney to Syria, Omar Khadr’s father, Ahmed, an Egyptian- Canadian charged with terrorist acts in Pakistan in the 1990s, brought his Palestinian- born wife and their six children from Toronto to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan, where he approved of his son joining a group of Arab terrorists.
“It is almost like a Mafia- style family who have this extended connection to terrorist- minded individuals who eventually end up in an awful lot of trouble,” Freakin said, adding that “there is something interesting about those involved in terrorism here or on the fringes of it ... There are certain families that seem to be core to the problems in Australia.”
Canada and Australia have been scrambling to catch up to the unprecedented challenge posed by homegrown terrorists, who get much of their information through slick online propaganda prepared by Islamic State and others.
“What can you do with someone who hasn’t broken a law and you are worried about them because they are on the cusp of exploring the ideology, but they haven’t committed an offence, so they sit in this grey area,” asked Freakin, a Briton who used to visit security officials in Ottawa when he was with the Royal United Services Institute. Having powers to counter such people before they can act was crucial, he said.
As well as making it easier for security agencies to tap into cellphone communications, intercept computer network information and keep metadata, the Australian government is seeking to legalize a more pre- emptive style of policing so people can be arrested before they commit a crime.
But as in Canada, even when individuals are suspected of being involved in this murky, hate- filled business, no concrete intervention programs exist yet in Australia.
Jihadists from Australia and Canada intent on becoming part of a global Islamic caliphate often share the same backgrounds.
“There is a flip from being a bit of a wild boy to suddenly everything is about religion and being very strict,” said Freakin, who has read a lot of the “core transcripts” describing Britain’s homegrown jihadists. “This eventually leads to a violent path.”
Khaled Sharrouf is now the most wanted man in Australia. He replaces Mohammad Ali Baryalei. The 33- year- old former bouncer, failed actor and Sydney street recruiter for radical Islamic causes had been the most senior Australian in Islamic State before he was possibly killed in a coalition air strike five weeks ago in Syria.
Hamdi Alqudsi of Sydney has been accused of being Australia’s leading facilitator for would- be jihadists such as Baryalei to reach Syria through Turkey. The 41- year- old welfare recipient, described by media here as “jihad’s travel agent,” allegedly provided funds and travel advice to seven young men he is said to have recruited to join Baryalei in Syria.
There are undoubtedly likeminded recruiters assisting radicalized Canadians to realize their ambition of joining Sharrouf as jihadist Internet idols. It is believed that Canberra and Ottawa are talking more frequently about how they can prevent terrorists from carrying out barbaric attacks in their own backyards.