A New Generation of Home-grown Terrorists Spring Up In Australia
January 29, 2008 by national
Filed under World Report
A new crop of home-grown jihadis, groomed to step up and replace the leaders of Australian terror cells who have been arrested or jailed, is almost “mature” enough to launch an operation, an international terror expert has warned.
The warning came after the release of figures showing the Australian Federal Police had 76 new counter-terrorism cases to investigate in the past financial year. At June 30 last year, the AFP had 83 cases being examined by its counter-terrorism team.
The latest so-called network of militant extremists has been steadily evolving and its members are almost ready to take over from their predecessors, according to Rohan Gunaratna, international terrorism expert and the author of Inside al-Qa’ida.
Dr Gunaratna said the home-grown terror suspects had been under investigation by Australian law enforcement agencies for some time. The new networks were very similar in “character and composition” to those that had been disrupted by law enforcement agencies.
“Law enforcement has only peeled back one layer of jihadis,” he said. “The second rung is maturing and ripe for another operation, possibly in the coming months.”
Intelligence sources say they are aware of the new threats, but deny there is any evidence that the groups may be close to planning an attack in Australia.
