Terrorism Close Calls (2018) s01e09 Episode Script
Australian Anzac Day Plot
The terror group ISIS begin recruiting foreign fighters over the internet to join their terrorist organization.
were producing very sophisticated, Madison Avenue-type of videos that would attract young recruits to come and join the new Islamic State.
â¦to travel, support the Caliphate by getting there, participating.
If you're unable to travel, then carry out an attack in your home country.
You can commit terrorism on the ground, in your neighborhood, in your city, and this is what ISIS is doing more and more of.
A terrorist plot hatched in England is to be carried out by an 18-year-old aspiring jihadist in Melbourne, Australia.
Besim and S came together through the use of the Telegram messaging services.
They decide to kill an Australian policeman.
Which he was going to utilize to incapacitate a policeman, run in, and behead them.
They plan the attack during Australia's Anzac Day celebration.
Had an act, a terrorist act, occurred on that day, it would have impacted the public psyche and the public confidence significantly.
British and Australian intelligence learn of the threat just days before the intended attack.
Little bit of a bolt from the blue.
One terrorist wants to be a martyr.
The other, notorious.
Once there was a commitment to actually doing this act, there was certainly no lack of resolution in going forward and doing it.
True stories of the world's deadliest terror plots, with exclusive access to leading counterterrorism experts and the elite agents who stopped the attacks.
- Homegrown Terrorists.
- Jihadi propaganda.
Neo-Nazis.
This cuts across ideological lines and it cuts across nationalism lines.
The depravity of the enemy we face knows no bounds, and so does our determination to keep them from hurting people.
People's lives depend on their success.
On this episode of Terrorism Close Calls, Australian police are alerted to a threat just days before an attack.
What they discover is a plot supported by ISIS, spanning two continents, orchestrated by two unlikely terrorists.
A joint effort between the United Kingdom and Australian security services are tasked to stop the attack.
ISIS burst onto the world stage in 2014, driving Iraqi government forces out of Mosul to capture the second largest city in Iraq.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced the establishment of a worldwide caliphate, claiming religious, political, and military authority over all Muslims worldwide.
Ross McNeill is the superintendent with the Victoria Police Force in the Capability Division within the Counter-Terrorism Command.
ISIL is an entity that is somewhat hell-bent on re-establishing the ancient caliphate from the early part of the first millennium.
They want to create that caliphate within the Middle East.
By 2015, ISIS controlled large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, enforcing sharia law on an estimated 11 million people.
Beheadings, public executions, and other human rights abuses and war crimes became an everyday occurrence.
The group is said to bring in up to three million dollars a day from oil revenue, human trafficking, looting, and extortion.
ISIS is by far the wealthiest terror network in history.
Estimated to be worth two billion dollars, they are more than able to fund an army of jihadist fighters, and actively recruit to bring more members into their fold, including a large international force targeted through online propaganda.
Marc Ginsberg is a former United States ambassador to Morocco and the current senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project in New York.
At the beginning of the Islamic State Caliphate, many of these videos were being produced by former Saudi social media engineers who moved to the Caliphate.
They were producing very sophisticated Madison Avenue-type of videos that would attract young recruits to come and join the new Islamic State.
Many of them promised occupational opportunities.
And then, to show the importance of how Muslims have been victimized by the West so that these young people, many of whom were unemployed, unoccupied, and who had their cousins, brothers, sisters, fathers get inspired by the Islamic State, would find their way on the underground railroad to the caliphate, whether it be Mosul or in Raqqa.
And in the first instance, with Mosul falling, there were lots of pictures of people in what used to be five-star homes, sitting by swimming pools, "Come over to ISIL, come to the Levant, work with us, look at the wonderful facilities we have.
" So that sort of image, if you like, that picture, that attraction, the shiny brass ring, always the initiating attraction, pushed through social media platforms, which was a great attraction to, perhaps, individuals that felt a little bit isolated.
And that, I think, was the origination of having so many people initially from Western countries move into what may well have appeared to be a utopia of some sort.
Some of those have taken families with them, which has created an additional difficulty to us, because mothers and children aren't necessarily combatants, but they are in those conflict zones.
Some 40,000 foreign fighters are believed to have joined ISIS from all over the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Australia between 2014 and 2017.
A lot of home-grown people from there, which was a concern for us.
Authorities claim 150 Australian citizens and residents left the country to join jihadist factions in the Middle East.
Among the list are a competitive boxer, students, a street preacher, pediatrician, a private school girl, four brothers, and an aspiring model.
His future looked bright, but somewhere along the way, 25-year-old Sharky Jama chose a life on the battlefield over a life on the catwalk The Australian fighters are exploited by ISIS propaganda to attract new supporters in the West.
In respect, particularly to Melbourne and Australia, the attraction was actually to have people come over and participate in this new entity called ISIL.
What we've seen happen, of course, is that it's been quite difficult for people to get out of Australia and go to the conflict zone where ISIL has been established, and as a result of that, ISIL is now publishing and pushing for individuals all around the world to take action in their home states.
Extremist groups begin targeting young Australians urging them not only to join ISIS, but, more importantly, to carry out terror attacks in their home countries.
The videos that are currently being produced by ISIS, highly inspirational and insightful and, as a result, we've seen what essentially is the same tactic over and over again, which is engage You no longer have to travel anywhere.
You can commit terrorism on the ground, in your neighborhood, in your city.
And this is what ISIS is doing more and more of.
Australia has three main agencies that help make up the Joint Counter-Terrorism to help fight and prevent attacks: the Australian Federal Police, the State Department, and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, also known as ASIO.
Detective Senior Agent Smith is with the Victoria Police Counter-Terrorism Command and Joint Counter-Terrorism in Melbourne, Australia.
work very collaboratively together.
Obviously, a lot of these investigations are driven by intelligence generated by ASIO, and then we tend to carry out the law enforcement aspect.
In Melbourne, the state's Victoria Police and the ASIO investigate matters relevant to security.
ASIO advises on potential security risks.
One person on their radar is 18-year-old Abdul Numan Haider.
In order to prevent people from joining ISIS, they begin revoking passports of suspected jihadists.
One of those is 18-year-old Abdul Numan Haider.
Ross Guenther is the assistant commissioner for the Counter-Terrorism Command at Victoria Police in Melbourne, Australia.
Haider would have been seen as someone that was likely to go and fight in a foreign land, and that would be of significant concern to both ourselves and our security partners.
Haider was a person of interest to the intelligence services in September 2014.
He'd applied for a passport to travel overseas.
An assessment had been undertaken, which resulted in that passport application being declined.
He was obviously upset.
On the 22nd of September, there was a Fatwa released by an Islamic State spokesperson, al-Bagdani, calling upon supporters of the Islamic State to carry out attacks against Western targets.
The following day, Haider is contacted by members of the Joint Counter-Terrorism to interview him in relation to his passport cancellation.
He takes this opportunity to stage an attack.
Abdul Numan Haider arrives at the police station and approaches two police officers with a knife.
Haider was involved in an attack upon police.
He stabbed two detectives from the Joint Counter-Terrorism Team, uh, and was subsequently fatally shot in that exchange.
As a result of the attack, Australia's Joint Counter-Terrorism begins to look into all of Haider's associates, and flag one of his friends, another 18-year-old Australian teenager named Sevdet Besim.
Born to an Albanian family in Macedonia, Sevdet Besim's parents immigrated to Australia when Besim was in kindergarten.
He grew up in the Hallam neighborhood of Melbourne, and lived at the same address his entire life.
Besim was one of four boys that resided in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne.
The family had migrated to Australia in the late 90s when Besim was a child.
He enjoyed a close relationship with his parents and two older brothers.
He was a decent student who finished high school in 2014, and had been actively looking for employment.
Although he grew up a Muslim, he lived a very Western lifestyle.
In 9th grade, Besim befriends a group of religious students, and takes a deeper interest in his own faith and begins to study the Koran with them.
He also attends the Hallam Mosque, where he meets Numan Haider.
The two live near each other and become good friends.
Besim is also introduced to Al-Furqan Islamic Centre in Springvale.
Al-Furqan is known for its promotion of extreme ideology.
Unlike the Hallam Mosque, the lectures at Al-Furqan have a very political slant, and include lectures on the conflict in the Middle East, and the fate of the Muslims in that part of the world.
It's hard to validate the influence of Al-Furqan in relation specifically to Besim.
What we would argue is that, whatever that influence was, it wouldn't have been in a positive way.
It would have probably promoted any intent he had to do something that supported his philosophy of defending the Caliphate.
Al-Furqan Islamic Centre is also where Besim meets 23-year-old Neil Prakash.
Australia's security services discover Neil Prakash, a Fijian, Indian, and Cambodian Islamic convert, is one of ISIS's chief recruiters.
He had traveled to Syria in early 2013, where he took the name Abu Khaled al-Cambodi, and soon climbed the ranks of the Islamic State.
in Australia.
Now is the time to rise, now is the time to wake up, now is the time to rush with the agenda Allah has promised you.
You must start attacking before they attack you.
Even after al-Cambodi returned to ISIS, intelligence reveals that he and Besim stay in close contact.
So once they established that and advised the Joint Counter-Terrorism there was a connection between the two, that became the start point, to say there's an issue here, because we had already established there was a relationship between Besim and Numan Haider.
Australia's counter-terrorism unit keeps close tabs on Besim, knowing that he is an associate of al-Cambodi and Numan Haider.
They also know that Besim has been with Haider on the morning he attacked the police.
Haider's death affected Besim deeply.
Besim is becoming more and more radicalized through Twitter and Facebook, and other ISIS propaganda.
He also joins the popular online community called the Baqiya family.
Here, members can be in direct communication with jihadist fighters on the field overseas.
Besim writes about the loss of his friend Haider.
His first preference would have been to travel over to the Middle East, join Islamic State, and participate in the conflict.
However, that was thwarted by the fact his passport application had been declined.
So it left him with no, in his view, no other option other than to carry out an attack domestically, which is what Islamic State encourages its followers to do.
Besim begins posting his radical views on the Baqiya social media network.
Meanwhile, 11,000 miles away in the United Kingdom, another radicalized self-proclaimed jihadist calling himself "S" is also venting his frustrations against the West.
Both are radicalized and encouraged by their online community.
Al-Cambodi, the Australian ISIS recruiter, now operating out of Raqqa in Syria, sees an opportunity and decides to bring the two together.
Al-Cambodi tells S in the United Kingdom about a brother in Australia who wishes to carry out a terrorist attack, but needs a guide to help support him.
S happily volunteers to act as his guide.
The "brother," who appears under the pseudonym "Illyas," is none other than Sevdet Besim.
Besim and S came together through the use of the Telegram messaging service which is, obviously, a mobile application.
After the initial introductions are made by al-Cambodi, Sevdet Besim, now calling himself Illyas, reaches out to S in the UK.
In his first communication, he states, "I'm the Australian brother Cambodi spoke of.
" In terms of the attack itself, obviously, the coordination was with S.
So he was directed to, obviously, engage with S, so he did that.
In the first nine days of communication, the two exchange over 3,000 messages via an encrypted messaging app.
Besim tells S about his desire to commit jihad.
S begins to help Besim plot an attack.
First, S tests Besim about his knowledge of Islam.
Besim and S discuss options for the attack.
After much deliberation, including joking about buying explosives and packing them into a kangaroo pouch, they decide to kill an Australian police officer.
Planning includes checking the price of machetes and concealing a large knife in Sevdet's clothes.
He reported back to S that he is able to move undetected.
He also sends a photo of the knife to S.
In terms of weapons, uh, he has discussions around trying to obtain a firearm.
He was unsuccessful in obtaining a firearm.
So he'd acquired a large, what he described as a Rambo knife.
So it is a large sort-of Bowie knife similar to what Haider used.
He also purchases a black shahada flag with Arabic script that reads "One God but Allah," and "Mohammad is the messenger of Allah," and a car he plans to use to run over a policeman before beheading him.
But, certainly, Besim's motivation was very clear from the communications.
Pretty chilling.
The amount of focus he had towards carrying out the attack and achieving his own death.
The plan and strategy to kill the police officer is set.
It's decided that once the officer is beheaded, Besim would take his gun and go on a shooting rampage that would end with his own death.
In the next few days, Sevdet Besim and S, the mysterious ISIS operative in the UK, have sent each other thousands of messages.
Many speak of their mutual hatred of the West and desire to conduct jihad.
Besim and S decide on a plot: the killing of an Australian police officer.
But the question is, "When and where?" Once there was a commitment to actually doing this act there was certainly no lack of resolution in going forward and doing it.
It was really picking the right day, the right time, committing to an incident that would cause the most public harm, and, of course, creating a path for Besim towards martyrdom.
Today we do pay homage to those men and women who either offered or gave their lives in war.
The decision is made to attack on Anzac Day in Melbourne.
Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand to commemorate those who have served and died for their country.
The day is observed with a big celebration and parade that brings out thousands of spectators on April 25th each year.
It was the 100th anniversary of Anzac Day, the landings at Gallipoli and Turkey in 1915.
It always holds a special place for most of us.
As Sevdet makes preparations for the attack, he also has some concerns.
Besim makes his intentions to become a martyr clear.
Australian security agencies are aware Besim is a serious person of interest, but not the full extent of his radicalization or plans for an attack, until intelligence is gained by secretive alliance of Five Eyes.
Often abbreviated as F-V-E-Y, Five Eyes is one of the most far-reaching espionage partnerships in modern history.
A major structure has been established for some time that's commonly called the Five Eyes, and that's a collaboration between Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, and the USA, and at a number of different levels that particular structure operates from an extremely senior level, where a lot of strategy is developed across global policies, and that does go down to information sharing, communications sharing.
So, any work that any of the Five Eyes have done gets shared across the whole spectrum.
In terms of information and understanding of what the environment looks like, what it may look like, and access to some of those really high-level think tanks is very important to us as well.
A signal alert from Five Eyes is sent to both British and Australian federal police about the discovery of a potential plot for an attack in Australia.
As authorities scramble to find more intelligence, British agents respond to what they believe is a totally unrelated call in Blackburn, Lancashire.
The investigation was undertaken by Lancashire Police.
As a result of their investigation, they discovered threats against his school teacher.
They're following up on reports of a young male making terrorist threats at school and on social media, claiming he has a decapitation list and is adding names to it.
Officers go to his house and meet a harmless looking 14-year-old boy with a degenerative eye condition.
They are surprised to find out the boy is a celebrity of the online jihadi community.
Specifically, one called Baqiya community, operating 89 Twitter accounts.
He may be having trouble at school, but online he's a passionate and completely radicalized jihadist with 24,000 followers.
In order to find out if the boy is really a threat, or just a teenager living out some kind of jihadist fantasy, they confiscate his cell phone and send it to the lab for further investigation.
It took a number of weeks for the UK authorities to develop a communication log, if you like.
They didn't just extract it out of the phone instantaneously.
It took a considerable amount of time, a considerable amount of effort by the UK authorities to do that.
So we were getting it in piecemeal, so we didn't really have a clear picture.
Over the next few weeks, UK authorities uncover thousands of messages.
Investigators are shocked to discover the 14-year-old boy from Blackburn, Lancashire is also the organizer and advisor of a plot to behead an Australian police officer on Anzac Day.
The teenager is plotting the attack with a man in Australia named Illyas, with a messaging app from his bedroom at his parents' house.
The 14-year-old's messaging handle is simple.
It's the letter S.
In the course of that, they found material that established a connection with S to Australia.
In a sense, that was the genesis of the investigation.
The UK police had identified these communications on the encrypted messaging app between an individual by the name of Illyas.
So when the material started to come flow out of the UK to us, it also came with the fact that he was a 14-year-old.
Once the encrypted messages are deciphered, S is taken into custody in the United Kingdom, and an alert is released to Australian security.
There's 3,000 lines of communications, and it ceased once S was arrested.
So S notified his followers, his Twitter followers, that he'd been arrested by the police, and encouraged anyone that had any communications with him on Telegram to self-destruct, to destroy that messaging.
As we subsequently discovered deleted the contents of their phones prior to us commencing the investigation here in Melbourne.
As time draws closer to the day of the proposed attack, information sharing and lines of communication between the North West Counter-Terrorism unit in Manchester, England and authorities in Australia become critical to the ongoing investigation.
So the information flow was fantastic.
In fact, the British authorities sent out two UK police towards the end of our investigation, with some of the material to assist us.
So, the level of cooperation across those agencies, from an international perspective, is fantastic, and it's the same with the US authorities, and a number of agencies in Europe.
The Australians look into intelligence on a person of interest named Illyas.
They soon discover Illyas is a pseudonym for a person already on their radar named Sevdet Besim.
So they established that and advised the Joint Counter-Terrorism that there was a connection between the two.
That became the start point, to say there's an issue here, because we had already established there was a relationship between Besim and Numan Haider.
I guess the important thing about that communication was that, as we later established, S was 14 years old at the time, but not seen in that respect by Besim.
Besim thought he was communicating with an adult in the UK.
And, in fact, S saw himself as being the controlling operative of Besim here in Melbourne.
Neither Besim nor al-Cambodi have any idea their handler, mentor, and jihadist conspirator is just a 14-year-old boy.
They've all gotten caught up in an elaborate scheme orchestrated by a child.
Effectively, we identified the communications between Besim and S that had been extracted by the UK authorities from S's phone.
So, we can only go by that as to gauge the relationship and how they came to be in contact with each other.
But it's clear, if you read the passage of communications between the two, that they were put in touch together by Neil Prakash, because he's referenced throughout the communications.
Along with Sevdet, Neil Prakash, a.
k.
a.
al-Cambodi, there also appear to be three other suspects involved in the case.
We were tasked the investigation, and it related to Mr.
Besim and three other associates of his believed to be engaging in an act of preparation for a terrorist act around the Anzac Day memorial service, or parade, scheduled for the 25th of April 2015.
Just seemed to be very suddenly it was getting very ready to happen.
At that particular point in time, one of the things that jolted me a bit was the suddenness of it.
My understanding of investigations in the past, there's usually been there's some early notification, there's a lot of the usual processes that you go through, the plod work, for want of a better term.
You slowly build a case until you're ready to go and talk to an individual.
But it's a little bit more driven by the individual in these circumstances, and that was a little bit of a bolt from the blue.
So your resources are spread out across four individuals, a variety of investigative techniques are employed, surveillance obviously being a significant part of that because you're trying to identify overt activity that would support a brief of evidence for prosecution.
With Anzac Day soon approaching, Victoria Police, along with agents of JCTT, work around the clock to continue surveillance on the suspects.
Once the Joint Counter-Terrorism commences the investigation um it utilizes the tri-agency relationship it has.
So, with our security services, with ASIO, with the Australian Federal Police, and, in this case, the jurisdictional police entity was Victoria Police.
Obviously, we were still a week out from Anzac Day.
We had also identified other persons that had some minor involvement, like the individual that was importing all the weapons, the tasers and knives, knuckle dusters and whatnot.
And you're never quite certain as to whether you've identified the entire cell.
Even over that three weeks, it's a 24-hour-a-day effort.
The volume of material that you generate through the course of an investigation Have you missed something? Have you missed someone? So it was a pretty nervous wait leading up to Anzac Day itself.
That was the 100th anniversary of Anzac Day that particular year.
It doesn't take much to as we've seen from other attacks overseas.
You know, a car, a knife.
Yeah, it was pretty concerning.
We've got to find that balance where we meet the public safety needs, but also give me the best chance to do my job.
That's ultimately the decision for the assistant commissioner, and others, as to when we go.
The decision was made for the 18th, and, of course, that's the date we went.
Besim and the other conspirators are under close watch.
With Anzac Day only a week away, and the horrific details of the plot revealed, the Victoria Police and the agents of the Joint Counter-Terrorism Unit decide it's time to move in and make the arrests.
There were six arrests on the day.
Four were the principal persons of interest in relation to the initial investigation, the actual acts in preparation of the plot for Anzac Day.
One was a weapons trafficker.
His involvement with the group was undetermined, but he was also the recipient of one of the older phones that had been sold, so we needed that particular phone for a forensic examination.
And then, obviously, the four main primary individuals, Besim and the three others that were the subject of the initial investigation.
Agents from Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police force descend on Sevdet Besim's family home, taking Besim into custody in front of his shocked parents.
The fact that S could carry out to be or purport to be an adult and be accepted not only by Besim here, but also, clearly, by members of the Islamic State themselves And, then again, the level of motivation, the indifferent way that they would describe carrying out a mass casualty attack, and the level of hatred towards the West For someone that was literally raised here He came here as a small child, grew up, again, southeastern suburbs of Melbourne, had access to everything that you would have growing up in Australia.
And to have that level of hatred is a bit of a surprise, but it's there.
We took these actions at this time for community safety reasons, and that we believed the attack could have occurred any time within the next week.
That service is attended by between 85,000 and 100,000 people.
With that, any act, even on a local Anzac service, and as you can imagine, these memorial services occur all over Australia, all over Victoria.
Had an act, a terrorist act, occurred on that day, it would have impacted the public psyche and the public confidence significantly.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott encourages all citizens to come out and commemorate Anzac Day in defiance of the planned attacks.
With the big events in Melbourne, much more security was placed around, without going extremely over the top and scaring the community.
But there was a much more significant visible police presence around at all of the events across the state.
This is a new paradigm for police.
The attacks These types of attacks that are planned are very rudimentary and simple, and, as we've said before, all you need these days is a knife, a flag, and a camera, and one can commit a terrorist act.
So it's very different, it's a different paradigm for us.
The other thing to get across is that the threat is real, and that everybody is working together to try and stop that threat.
We were starting to see then, um, some radicalization that was getting even younger than that.
We had discussions with a number of Islamic leaders through video conferences, telephone calls, and information from overseas and other locations that weren't conflict-zone locations.
And now we're seeing very young individuals that are not fully aware of what the Koran talks of, and how Islam actually operates.
Grabbing small pieces of that and becoming quite violent in their approach and their vocalization.
So, seeing it hoping it wasn't going to happen to that level with that age group, unfortunately, was not really a surprise.
As questions arise on how two young men from separate parts of the world could have been radicalized to the extent to commit murder, authorities point to the online community.
Before the Caliphate was under attack, these videos became instrumental in recruiting significant numbers of young would-be terrorists to Iraq and Syria.
But as a consequence of the fall of the Caliphate, ISIS has now changed its video tactics to engage in what, essentially, are 20 videos each day to incite, as well as to provide tactical video inspiration on the construction of suicide vests, how to use trucks to mow down pedestrians, and how to use sophisticated, home-type chemicals in order to construct bombs that would harm as many pedestrians and civilians as possible.
The 14-year-old S, whose real name can't be disclosed, pleads guilty at Manchester Crown Court in England to inciting terrorism overseas.
He's sentenced to life for plotting the Anzac Day massacre.
He is the youngest British national to be found guilty of a terrorist offense.
In Australia, Besim pleads guilty to conspiring to do an act in preparation for, or planning a terror attack, a charge carrying a maximum term of life imprisonment.
The defense argues that he is young and impressionable, and removed from the influence of online propaganda, he would no longer be a threat.
Many believe Sevdet Besim's case should serve as a warning to teenagers, who are seduced by the targeted campaigns of terrorist groups to recruit followers.
Authorities point to Neil Prakash, a.
k.
a.
al-Cambodi, as the instigator of the Anzac Day Plot.
I come from the land of Australia.
Alhamdulillah, today I want to say to you brothers and sisters my story of how I came to Islam.
The media has portrayed that we come here, that we're social outcasts, that we had nobody, that we have to turn to Islam because we were just troublemakers in the past.
But this is far from the reality.
You see people from all walks of life here.
Every single street you walk through, every single courthouse you go to, hospitals, you see all different types of brothers.
He's facing very significant charges of being a member of a terrorist organization, supporting a terrorist organization.
Counter-terrorism experts encourage parents to pay close attention to their children's online footprint, and stay on top of websites and online conversations kids engage in.
The number of young people between the age of 13, 14, and 20 years of age involved in acts of terrorism was, in fact, increasing.
Not just here, but in our partners, of course, in the US, Canada, the UK, we're seeing the same issue.
And if you think of the context of the environment then, this is the time when the Caliphate is commencing to really establish itself.
So, the scalability of young people involved in that period was significant.
Realizing that punishment alone isn't a deterrent, the Australian authorities decide that they have to do more to stop young people from radicalizing in the first place.
Tempering this with hindsight being a wonderful thing.
But there is a potential there that that particular individual may have been picked up and dealt with by health services as opposed to accelerating to the point he accelerated to.
We've had a program in place that has been dealing with those who have been charged with terrorism-related offenses through our imam structures.
The Victorian Board of Imams is an independent body, and we support that particular group in mentoring and talking with young people.
But our Board of Imams advise these younger guys.
They talk to them in relation to what their view of Islam actually is and what it means.
They debunk an awful lot of the piffle that comes across social media in terms of Islam over an extended period of time, and we've been able to, sort of diminish the impact of some of that social media stuff on our younger community members.
And the communities that are engaged with us are saying that these kids keep coming back to the forums and still discuss, and have open dialogue about theology, rather than a violent approach.
So there's a lot of wins that we've had over the journey.
In 2017, ISIS fell in Raqqa, and the Islamic State capital in Syria collapses after a four-month battle with US-backed forces.
Today, ISIS is heavily diminished, and, as a result, is shifting its focus to bombings, targeted assassinations, and other terror tactics as they find refuge in countries plagued by war or with weak central governments.
One of the gravest challenges that Western intelligence faces is how to interdict the tactical as well as inspirational social media that continues right now to provide incitement and inspiration, as well as tactical advice to would-be terrorists, whether they be in Barcelona, London, Paris, or elsewhere in the region.
Tactics of the terrorist groups change all the time.
Some of the documentation that comes out from these groups gives advice on how to do different things.
It may be One month, a document might come out and talk in terms of how to derail a train which was a recent one.
Or how to stab someone.
All these different sort-of approaches that they put out.
The strategy for us is significant communication approach in terms of dealing with the community.
It is about letting our sectors know what's happening and what information we have.
These inspirational videos are still being found on YouTube, as well as Twitter and Facebook.
And the social media companies do not, and are unwilling to take the steps that are necessary to immediately take these videos down.
So, as a result, they wind up staying on for days at a time, and having the desired effect.
That is to, in effect, provide the tactical information of homegrown terrorists to engage in the type of attacks that we've seen in the last few months.
Social media provides the oxygen for terrorist operations to this day.
The fact that tactical videos for the construction of suicide vests, as well as bomb-making equipment, can be found on YouTube today is an illustration of the failure of these corporations to take the remedial steps necessary, and the technology that is available to them, to be able to take these videos down.
For many of Australia's fighters, Raqqa became their grave.
Others surrendered, fled, or even tried to return to Australia.
In response, Australian counter-terrorism enforcement agencies cancel passports and refuse to allow these jihadists to return.
They also lobby for more rigorous online regulations to stop the flow of recruitment.
There's no doubt in my mind that the social media platforms that are now globalized are the mother's milk of terrorism on behalf of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations around the world.
Without social media, they would not be able to reach the potential terrorists themselves, as well as to incite and inspire the very terrorists that remain with these organizations.
Each attack provides incitement and inspiration for their membership, as well as would-be terrorists.
All you who believe, answer the call of Allah and his messenger when he calls you to what gives you life.
Oh, my goodness.
Living in the West, I know how you feel, when, actually, in the heart you feel depressed.
The prophet said, "The cure for the depression is jihad for Allah.
" There's only one way to be able to do what is necessary to stop these inciteful videos from appearing, and that is to compel to compel, either by judicial means, or by the passage of new laws by Congress, to require the social media companies to engage in the best practices that are available right now to take these videos down as soon as they're posted.
Without these videos, the imams in the mosques, as well as the would-be terrorists, do not have the social media oxygen that would be ordinarily available to them.
were producing very sophisticated, Madison Avenue-type of videos that would attract young recruits to come and join the new Islamic State.
â¦to travel, support the Caliphate by getting there, participating.
If you're unable to travel, then carry out an attack in your home country.
You can commit terrorism on the ground, in your neighborhood, in your city, and this is what ISIS is doing more and more of.
A terrorist plot hatched in England is to be carried out by an 18-year-old aspiring jihadist in Melbourne, Australia.
Besim and S came together through the use of the Telegram messaging services.
They decide to kill an Australian policeman.
Which he was going to utilize to incapacitate a policeman, run in, and behead them.
They plan the attack during Australia's Anzac Day celebration.
Had an act, a terrorist act, occurred on that day, it would have impacted the public psyche and the public confidence significantly.
British and Australian intelligence learn of the threat just days before the intended attack.
Little bit of a bolt from the blue.
One terrorist wants to be a martyr.
The other, notorious.
Once there was a commitment to actually doing this act, there was certainly no lack of resolution in going forward and doing it.
True stories of the world's deadliest terror plots, with exclusive access to leading counterterrorism experts and the elite agents who stopped the attacks.
- Homegrown Terrorists.
- Jihadi propaganda.
Neo-Nazis.
This cuts across ideological lines and it cuts across nationalism lines.
The depravity of the enemy we face knows no bounds, and so does our determination to keep them from hurting people.
People's lives depend on their success.
On this episode of Terrorism Close Calls, Australian police are alerted to a threat just days before an attack.
What they discover is a plot supported by ISIS, spanning two continents, orchestrated by two unlikely terrorists.
A joint effort between the United Kingdom and Australian security services are tasked to stop the attack.
ISIS burst onto the world stage in 2014, driving Iraqi government forces out of Mosul to capture the second largest city in Iraq.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced the establishment of a worldwide caliphate, claiming religious, political, and military authority over all Muslims worldwide.
Ross McNeill is the superintendent with the Victoria Police Force in the Capability Division within the Counter-Terrorism Command.
ISIL is an entity that is somewhat hell-bent on re-establishing the ancient caliphate from the early part of the first millennium.
They want to create that caliphate within the Middle East.
By 2015, ISIS controlled large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, enforcing sharia law on an estimated 11 million people.
Beheadings, public executions, and other human rights abuses and war crimes became an everyday occurrence.
The group is said to bring in up to three million dollars a day from oil revenue, human trafficking, looting, and extortion.
ISIS is by far the wealthiest terror network in history.
Estimated to be worth two billion dollars, they are more than able to fund an army of jihadist fighters, and actively recruit to bring more members into their fold, including a large international force targeted through online propaganda.
Marc Ginsberg is a former United States ambassador to Morocco and the current senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project in New York.
At the beginning of the Islamic State Caliphate, many of these videos were being produced by former Saudi social media engineers who moved to the Caliphate.
They were producing very sophisticated Madison Avenue-type of videos that would attract young recruits to come and join the new Islamic State.
Many of them promised occupational opportunities.
And then, to show the importance of how Muslims have been victimized by the West so that these young people, many of whom were unemployed, unoccupied, and who had their cousins, brothers, sisters, fathers get inspired by the Islamic State, would find their way on the underground railroad to the caliphate, whether it be Mosul or in Raqqa.
And in the first instance, with Mosul falling, there were lots of pictures of people in what used to be five-star homes, sitting by swimming pools, "Come over to ISIL, come to the Levant, work with us, look at the wonderful facilities we have.
" So that sort of image, if you like, that picture, that attraction, the shiny brass ring, always the initiating attraction, pushed through social media platforms, which was a great attraction to, perhaps, individuals that felt a little bit isolated.
And that, I think, was the origination of having so many people initially from Western countries move into what may well have appeared to be a utopia of some sort.
Some of those have taken families with them, which has created an additional difficulty to us, because mothers and children aren't necessarily combatants, but they are in those conflict zones.
Some 40,000 foreign fighters are believed to have joined ISIS from all over the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Australia between 2014 and 2017.
A lot of home-grown people from there, which was a concern for us.
Authorities claim 150 Australian citizens and residents left the country to join jihadist factions in the Middle East.
Among the list are a competitive boxer, students, a street preacher, pediatrician, a private school girl, four brothers, and an aspiring model.
His future looked bright, but somewhere along the way, 25-year-old Sharky Jama chose a life on the battlefield over a life on the catwalk The Australian fighters are exploited by ISIS propaganda to attract new supporters in the West.
In respect, particularly to Melbourne and Australia, the attraction was actually to have people come over and participate in this new entity called ISIL.
What we've seen happen, of course, is that it's been quite difficult for people to get out of Australia and go to the conflict zone where ISIL has been established, and as a result of that, ISIL is now publishing and pushing for individuals all around the world to take action in their home states.
Extremist groups begin targeting young Australians urging them not only to join ISIS, but, more importantly, to carry out terror attacks in their home countries.
The videos that are currently being produced by ISIS, highly inspirational and insightful and, as a result, we've seen what essentially is the same tactic over and over again, which is engage You no longer have to travel anywhere.
You can commit terrorism on the ground, in your neighborhood, in your city.
And this is what ISIS is doing more and more of.
Australia has three main agencies that help make up the Joint Counter-Terrorism to help fight and prevent attacks: the Australian Federal Police, the State Department, and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, also known as ASIO.
Detective Senior Agent Smith is with the Victoria Police Counter-Terrorism Command and Joint Counter-Terrorism in Melbourne, Australia.
work very collaboratively together.
Obviously, a lot of these investigations are driven by intelligence generated by ASIO, and then we tend to carry out the law enforcement aspect.
In Melbourne, the state's Victoria Police and the ASIO investigate matters relevant to security.
ASIO advises on potential security risks.
One person on their radar is 18-year-old Abdul Numan Haider.
In order to prevent people from joining ISIS, they begin revoking passports of suspected jihadists.
One of those is 18-year-old Abdul Numan Haider.
Ross Guenther is the assistant commissioner for the Counter-Terrorism Command at Victoria Police in Melbourne, Australia.
Haider would have been seen as someone that was likely to go and fight in a foreign land, and that would be of significant concern to both ourselves and our security partners.
Haider was a person of interest to the intelligence services in September 2014.
He'd applied for a passport to travel overseas.
An assessment had been undertaken, which resulted in that passport application being declined.
He was obviously upset.
On the 22nd of September, there was a Fatwa released by an Islamic State spokesperson, al-Bagdani, calling upon supporters of the Islamic State to carry out attacks against Western targets.
The following day, Haider is contacted by members of the Joint Counter-Terrorism to interview him in relation to his passport cancellation.
He takes this opportunity to stage an attack.
Abdul Numan Haider arrives at the police station and approaches two police officers with a knife.
Haider was involved in an attack upon police.
He stabbed two detectives from the Joint Counter-Terrorism Team, uh, and was subsequently fatally shot in that exchange.
As a result of the attack, Australia's Joint Counter-Terrorism begins to look into all of Haider's associates, and flag one of his friends, another 18-year-old Australian teenager named Sevdet Besim.
Born to an Albanian family in Macedonia, Sevdet Besim's parents immigrated to Australia when Besim was in kindergarten.
He grew up in the Hallam neighborhood of Melbourne, and lived at the same address his entire life.
Besim was one of four boys that resided in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne.
The family had migrated to Australia in the late 90s when Besim was a child.
He enjoyed a close relationship with his parents and two older brothers.
He was a decent student who finished high school in 2014, and had been actively looking for employment.
Although he grew up a Muslim, he lived a very Western lifestyle.
In 9th grade, Besim befriends a group of religious students, and takes a deeper interest in his own faith and begins to study the Koran with them.
He also attends the Hallam Mosque, where he meets Numan Haider.
The two live near each other and become good friends.
Besim is also introduced to Al-Furqan Islamic Centre in Springvale.
Al-Furqan is known for its promotion of extreme ideology.
Unlike the Hallam Mosque, the lectures at Al-Furqan have a very political slant, and include lectures on the conflict in the Middle East, and the fate of the Muslims in that part of the world.
It's hard to validate the influence of Al-Furqan in relation specifically to Besim.
What we would argue is that, whatever that influence was, it wouldn't have been in a positive way.
It would have probably promoted any intent he had to do something that supported his philosophy of defending the Caliphate.
Al-Furqan Islamic Centre is also where Besim meets 23-year-old Neil Prakash.
Australia's security services discover Neil Prakash, a Fijian, Indian, and Cambodian Islamic convert, is one of ISIS's chief recruiters.
He had traveled to Syria in early 2013, where he took the name Abu Khaled al-Cambodi, and soon climbed the ranks of the Islamic State.
in Australia.
Now is the time to rise, now is the time to wake up, now is the time to rush with the agenda Allah has promised you.
You must start attacking before they attack you.
Even after al-Cambodi returned to ISIS, intelligence reveals that he and Besim stay in close contact.
So once they established that and advised the Joint Counter-Terrorism there was a connection between the two, that became the start point, to say there's an issue here, because we had already established there was a relationship between Besim and Numan Haider.
Australia's counter-terrorism unit keeps close tabs on Besim, knowing that he is an associate of al-Cambodi and Numan Haider.
They also know that Besim has been with Haider on the morning he attacked the police.
Haider's death affected Besim deeply.
Besim is becoming more and more radicalized through Twitter and Facebook, and other ISIS propaganda.
He also joins the popular online community called the Baqiya family.
Here, members can be in direct communication with jihadist fighters on the field overseas.
Besim writes about the loss of his friend Haider.
His first preference would have been to travel over to the Middle East, join Islamic State, and participate in the conflict.
However, that was thwarted by the fact his passport application had been declined.
So it left him with no, in his view, no other option other than to carry out an attack domestically, which is what Islamic State encourages its followers to do.
Besim begins posting his radical views on the Baqiya social media network.
Meanwhile, 11,000 miles away in the United Kingdom, another radicalized self-proclaimed jihadist calling himself "S" is also venting his frustrations against the West.
Both are radicalized and encouraged by their online community.
Al-Cambodi, the Australian ISIS recruiter, now operating out of Raqqa in Syria, sees an opportunity and decides to bring the two together.
Al-Cambodi tells S in the United Kingdom about a brother in Australia who wishes to carry out a terrorist attack, but needs a guide to help support him.
S happily volunteers to act as his guide.
The "brother," who appears under the pseudonym "Illyas," is none other than Sevdet Besim.
Besim and S came together through the use of the Telegram messaging service which is, obviously, a mobile application.
After the initial introductions are made by al-Cambodi, Sevdet Besim, now calling himself Illyas, reaches out to S in the UK.
In his first communication, he states, "I'm the Australian brother Cambodi spoke of.
" In terms of the attack itself, obviously, the coordination was with S.
So he was directed to, obviously, engage with S, so he did that.
In the first nine days of communication, the two exchange over 3,000 messages via an encrypted messaging app.
Besim tells S about his desire to commit jihad.
S begins to help Besim plot an attack.
First, S tests Besim about his knowledge of Islam.
Besim and S discuss options for the attack.
After much deliberation, including joking about buying explosives and packing them into a kangaroo pouch, they decide to kill an Australian police officer.
Planning includes checking the price of machetes and concealing a large knife in Sevdet's clothes.
He reported back to S that he is able to move undetected.
He also sends a photo of the knife to S.
In terms of weapons, uh, he has discussions around trying to obtain a firearm.
He was unsuccessful in obtaining a firearm.
So he'd acquired a large, what he described as a Rambo knife.
So it is a large sort-of Bowie knife similar to what Haider used.
He also purchases a black shahada flag with Arabic script that reads "One God but Allah," and "Mohammad is the messenger of Allah," and a car he plans to use to run over a policeman before beheading him.
But, certainly, Besim's motivation was very clear from the communications.
Pretty chilling.
The amount of focus he had towards carrying out the attack and achieving his own death.
The plan and strategy to kill the police officer is set.
It's decided that once the officer is beheaded, Besim would take his gun and go on a shooting rampage that would end with his own death.
In the next few days, Sevdet Besim and S, the mysterious ISIS operative in the UK, have sent each other thousands of messages.
Many speak of their mutual hatred of the West and desire to conduct jihad.
Besim and S decide on a plot: the killing of an Australian police officer.
But the question is, "When and where?" Once there was a commitment to actually doing this act there was certainly no lack of resolution in going forward and doing it.
It was really picking the right day, the right time, committing to an incident that would cause the most public harm, and, of course, creating a path for Besim towards martyrdom.
Today we do pay homage to those men and women who either offered or gave their lives in war.
The decision is made to attack on Anzac Day in Melbourne.
Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand to commemorate those who have served and died for their country.
The day is observed with a big celebration and parade that brings out thousands of spectators on April 25th each year.
It was the 100th anniversary of Anzac Day, the landings at Gallipoli and Turkey in 1915.
It always holds a special place for most of us.
As Sevdet makes preparations for the attack, he also has some concerns.
Besim makes his intentions to become a martyr clear.
Australian security agencies are aware Besim is a serious person of interest, but not the full extent of his radicalization or plans for an attack, until intelligence is gained by secretive alliance of Five Eyes.
Often abbreviated as F-V-E-Y, Five Eyes is one of the most far-reaching espionage partnerships in modern history.
A major structure has been established for some time that's commonly called the Five Eyes, and that's a collaboration between Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, and the USA, and at a number of different levels that particular structure operates from an extremely senior level, where a lot of strategy is developed across global policies, and that does go down to information sharing, communications sharing.
So, any work that any of the Five Eyes have done gets shared across the whole spectrum.
In terms of information and understanding of what the environment looks like, what it may look like, and access to some of those really high-level think tanks is very important to us as well.
A signal alert from Five Eyes is sent to both British and Australian federal police about the discovery of a potential plot for an attack in Australia.
As authorities scramble to find more intelligence, British agents respond to what they believe is a totally unrelated call in Blackburn, Lancashire.
The investigation was undertaken by Lancashire Police.
As a result of their investigation, they discovered threats against his school teacher.
They're following up on reports of a young male making terrorist threats at school and on social media, claiming he has a decapitation list and is adding names to it.
Officers go to his house and meet a harmless looking 14-year-old boy with a degenerative eye condition.
They are surprised to find out the boy is a celebrity of the online jihadi community.
Specifically, one called Baqiya community, operating 89 Twitter accounts.
He may be having trouble at school, but online he's a passionate and completely radicalized jihadist with 24,000 followers.
In order to find out if the boy is really a threat, or just a teenager living out some kind of jihadist fantasy, they confiscate his cell phone and send it to the lab for further investigation.
It took a number of weeks for the UK authorities to develop a communication log, if you like.
They didn't just extract it out of the phone instantaneously.
It took a considerable amount of time, a considerable amount of effort by the UK authorities to do that.
So we were getting it in piecemeal, so we didn't really have a clear picture.
Over the next few weeks, UK authorities uncover thousands of messages.
Investigators are shocked to discover the 14-year-old boy from Blackburn, Lancashire is also the organizer and advisor of a plot to behead an Australian police officer on Anzac Day.
The teenager is plotting the attack with a man in Australia named Illyas, with a messaging app from his bedroom at his parents' house.
The 14-year-old's messaging handle is simple.
It's the letter S.
In the course of that, they found material that established a connection with S to Australia.
In a sense, that was the genesis of the investigation.
The UK police had identified these communications on the encrypted messaging app between an individual by the name of Illyas.
So when the material started to come flow out of the UK to us, it also came with the fact that he was a 14-year-old.
Once the encrypted messages are deciphered, S is taken into custody in the United Kingdom, and an alert is released to Australian security.
There's 3,000 lines of communications, and it ceased once S was arrested.
So S notified his followers, his Twitter followers, that he'd been arrested by the police, and encouraged anyone that had any communications with him on Telegram to self-destruct, to destroy that messaging.
As we subsequently discovered deleted the contents of their phones prior to us commencing the investigation here in Melbourne.
As time draws closer to the day of the proposed attack, information sharing and lines of communication between the North West Counter-Terrorism unit in Manchester, England and authorities in Australia become critical to the ongoing investigation.
So the information flow was fantastic.
In fact, the British authorities sent out two UK police towards the end of our investigation, with some of the material to assist us.
So, the level of cooperation across those agencies, from an international perspective, is fantastic, and it's the same with the US authorities, and a number of agencies in Europe.
The Australians look into intelligence on a person of interest named Illyas.
They soon discover Illyas is a pseudonym for a person already on their radar named Sevdet Besim.
So they established that and advised the Joint Counter-Terrorism that there was a connection between the two.
That became the start point, to say there's an issue here, because we had already established there was a relationship between Besim and Numan Haider.
I guess the important thing about that communication was that, as we later established, S was 14 years old at the time, but not seen in that respect by Besim.
Besim thought he was communicating with an adult in the UK.
And, in fact, S saw himself as being the controlling operative of Besim here in Melbourne.
Neither Besim nor al-Cambodi have any idea their handler, mentor, and jihadist conspirator is just a 14-year-old boy.
They've all gotten caught up in an elaborate scheme orchestrated by a child.
Effectively, we identified the communications between Besim and S that had been extracted by the UK authorities from S's phone.
So, we can only go by that as to gauge the relationship and how they came to be in contact with each other.
But it's clear, if you read the passage of communications between the two, that they were put in touch together by Neil Prakash, because he's referenced throughout the communications.
Along with Sevdet, Neil Prakash, a.
k.
a.
al-Cambodi, there also appear to be three other suspects involved in the case.
We were tasked the investigation, and it related to Mr.
Besim and three other associates of his believed to be engaging in an act of preparation for a terrorist act around the Anzac Day memorial service, or parade, scheduled for the 25th of April 2015.
Just seemed to be very suddenly it was getting very ready to happen.
At that particular point in time, one of the things that jolted me a bit was the suddenness of it.
My understanding of investigations in the past, there's usually been there's some early notification, there's a lot of the usual processes that you go through, the plod work, for want of a better term.
You slowly build a case until you're ready to go and talk to an individual.
But it's a little bit more driven by the individual in these circumstances, and that was a little bit of a bolt from the blue.
So your resources are spread out across four individuals, a variety of investigative techniques are employed, surveillance obviously being a significant part of that because you're trying to identify overt activity that would support a brief of evidence for prosecution.
With Anzac Day soon approaching, Victoria Police, along with agents of JCTT, work around the clock to continue surveillance on the suspects.
Once the Joint Counter-Terrorism commences the investigation um it utilizes the tri-agency relationship it has.
So, with our security services, with ASIO, with the Australian Federal Police, and, in this case, the jurisdictional police entity was Victoria Police.
Obviously, we were still a week out from Anzac Day.
We had also identified other persons that had some minor involvement, like the individual that was importing all the weapons, the tasers and knives, knuckle dusters and whatnot.
And you're never quite certain as to whether you've identified the entire cell.
Even over that three weeks, it's a 24-hour-a-day effort.
The volume of material that you generate through the course of an investigation Have you missed something? Have you missed someone? So it was a pretty nervous wait leading up to Anzac Day itself.
That was the 100th anniversary of Anzac Day that particular year.
It doesn't take much to as we've seen from other attacks overseas.
You know, a car, a knife.
Yeah, it was pretty concerning.
We've got to find that balance where we meet the public safety needs, but also give me the best chance to do my job.
That's ultimately the decision for the assistant commissioner, and others, as to when we go.
The decision was made for the 18th, and, of course, that's the date we went.
Besim and the other conspirators are under close watch.
With Anzac Day only a week away, and the horrific details of the plot revealed, the Victoria Police and the agents of the Joint Counter-Terrorism Unit decide it's time to move in and make the arrests.
There were six arrests on the day.
Four were the principal persons of interest in relation to the initial investigation, the actual acts in preparation of the plot for Anzac Day.
One was a weapons trafficker.
His involvement with the group was undetermined, but he was also the recipient of one of the older phones that had been sold, so we needed that particular phone for a forensic examination.
And then, obviously, the four main primary individuals, Besim and the three others that were the subject of the initial investigation.
Agents from Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police force descend on Sevdet Besim's family home, taking Besim into custody in front of his shocked parents.
The fact that S could carry out to be or purport to be an adult and be accepted not only by Besim here, but also, clearly, by members of the Islamic State themselves And, then again, the level of motivation, the indifferent way that they would describe carrying out a mass casualty attack, and the level of hatred towards the West For someone that was literally raised here He came here as a small child, grew up, again, southeastern suburbs of Melbourne, had access to everything that you would have growing up in Australia.
And to have that level of hatred is a bit of a surprise, but it's there.
We took these actions at this time for community safety reasons, and that we believed the attack could have occurred any time within the next week.
That service is attended by between 85,000 and 100,000 people.
With that, any act, even on a local Anzac service, and as you can imagine, these memorial services occur all over Australia, all over Victoria.
Had an act, a terrorist act, occurred on that day, it would have impacted the public psyche and the public confidence significantly.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott encourages all citizens to come out and commemorate Anzac Day in defiance of the planned attacks.
With the big events in Melbourne, much more security was placed around, without going extremely over the top and scaring the community.
But there was a much more significant visible police presence around at all of the events across the state.
This is a new paradigm for police.
The attacks These types of attacks that are planned are very rudimentary and simple, and, as we've said before, all you need these days is a knife, a flag, and a camera, and one can commit a terrorist act.
So it's very different, it's a different paradigm for us.
The other thing to get across is that the threat is real, and that everybody is working together to try and stop that threat.
We were starting to see then, um, some radicalization that was getting even younger than that.
We had discussions with a number of Islamic leaders through video conferences, telephone calls, and information from overseas and other locations that weren't conflict-zone locations.
And now we're seeing very young individuals that are not fully aware of what the Koran talks of, and how Islam actually operates.
Grabbing small pieces of that and becoming quite violent in their approach and their vocalization.
So, seeing it hoping it wasn't going to happen to that level with that age group, unfortunately, was not really a surprise.
As questions arise on how two young men from separate parts of the world could have been radicalized to the extent to commit murder, authorities point to the online community.
Before the Caliphate was under attack, these videos became instrumental in recruiting significant numbers of young would-be terrorists to Iraq and Syria.
But as a consequence of the fall of the Caliphate, ISIS has now changed its video tactics to engage in what, essentially, are 20 videos each day to incite, as well as to provide tactical video inspiration on the construction of suicide vests, how to use trucks to mow down pedestrians, and how to use sophisticated, home-type chemicals in order to construct bombs that would harm as many pedestrians and civilians as possible.
The 14-year-old S, whose real name can't be disclosed, pleads guilty at Manchester Crown Court in England to inciting terrorism overseas.
He's sentenced to life for plotting the Anzac Day massacre.
He is the youngest British national to be found guilty of a terrorist offense.
In Australia, Besim pleads guilty to conspiring to do an act in preparation for, or planning a terror attack, a charge carrying a maximum term of life imprisonment.
The defense argues that he is young and impressionable, and removed from the influence of online propaganda, he would no longer be a threat.
Many believe Sevdet Besim's case should serve as a warning to teenagers, who are seduced by the targeted campaigns of terrorist groups to recruit followers.
Authorities point to Neil Prakash, a.
k.
a.
al-Cambodi, as the instigator of the Anzac Day Plot.
I come from the land of Australia.
Alhamdulillah, today I want to say to you brothers and sisters my story of how I came to Islam.
The media has portrayed that we come here, that we're social outcasts, that we had nobody, that we have to turn to Islam because we were just troublemakers in the past.
But this is far from the reality.
You see people from all walks of life here.
Every single street you walk through, every single courthouse you go to, hospitals, you see all different types of brothers.
He's facing very significant charges of being a member of a terrorist organization, supporting a terrorist organization.
Counter-terrorism experts encourage parents to pay close attention to their children's online footprint, and stay on top of websites and online conversations kids engage in.
The number of young people between the age of 13, 14, and 20 years of age involved in acts of terrorism was, in fact, increasing.
Not just here, but in our partners, of course, in the US, Canada, the UK, we're seeing the same issue.
And if you think of the context of the environment then, this is the time when the Caliphate is commencing to really establish itself.
So, the scalability of young people involved in that period was significant.
Realizing that punishment alone isn't a deterrent, the Australian authorities decide that they have to do more to stop young people from radicalizing in the first place.
Tempering this with hindsight being a wonderful thing.
But there is a potential there that that particular individual may have been picked up and dealt with by health services as opposed to accelerating to the point he accelerated to.
We've had a program in place that has been dealing with those who have been charged with terrorism-related offenses through our imam structures.
The Victorian Board of Imams is an independent body, and we support that particular group in mentoring and talking with young people.
But our Board of Imams advise these younger guys.
They talk to them in relation to what their view of Islam actually is and what it means.
They debunk an awful lot of the piffle that comes across social media in terms of Islam over an extended period of time, and we've been able to, sort of diminish the impact of some of that social media stuff on our younger community members.
And the communities that are engaged with us are saying that these kids keep coming back to the forums and still discuss, and have open dialogue about theology, rather than a violent approach.
So there's a lot of wins that we've had over the journey.
In 2017, ISIS fell in Raqqa, and the Islamic State capital in Syria collapses after a four-month battle with US-backed forces.
Today, ISIS is heavily diminished, and, as a result, is shifting its focus to bombings, targeted assassinations, and other terror tactics as they find refuge in countries plagued by war or with weak central governments.
One of the gravest challenges that Western intelligence faces is how to interdict the tactical as well as inspirational social media that continues right now to provide incitement and inspiration, as well as tactical advice to would-be terrorists, whether they be in Barcelona, London, Paris, or elsewhere in the region.
Tactics of the terrorist groups change all the time.
Some of the documentation that comes out from these groups gives advice on how to do different things.
It may be One month, a document might come out and talk in terms of how to derail a train which was a recent one.
Or how to stab someone.
All these different sort-of approaches that they put out.
The strategy for us is significant communication approach in terms of dealing with the community.
It is about letting our sectors know what's happening and what information we have.
These inspirational videos are still being found on YouTube, as well as Twitter and Facebook.
And the social media companies do not, and are unwilling to take the steps that are necessary to immediately take these videos down.
So, as a result, they wind up staying on for days at a time, and having the desired effect.
That is to, in effect, provide the tactical information of homegrown terrorists to engage in the type of attacks that we've seen in the last few months.
Social media provides the oxygen for terrorist operations to this day.
The fact that tactical videos for the construction of suicide vests, as well as bomb-making equipment, can be found on YouTube today is an illustration of the failure of these corporations to take the remedial steps necessary, and the technology that is available to them, to be able to take these videos down.
For many of Australia's fighters, Raqqa became their grave.
Others surrendered, fled, or even tried to return to Australia.
In response, Australian counter-terrorism enforcement agencies cancel passports and refuse to allow these jihadists to return.
They also lobby for more rigorous online regulations to stop the flow of recruitment.
There's no doubt in my mind that the social media platforms that are now globalized are the mother's milk of terrorism on behalf of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations around the world.
Without social media, they would not be able to reach the potential terrorists themselves, as well as to incite and inspire the very terrorists that remain with these organizations.
Each attack provides incitement and inspiration for their membership, as well as would-be terrorists.
All you who believe, answer the call of Allah and his messenger when he calls you to what gives you life.
Oh, my goodness.
Living in the West, I know how you feel, when, actually, in the heart you feel depressed.
The prophet said, "The cure for the depression is jihad for Allah.
" There's only one way to be able to do what is necessary to stop these inciteful videos from appearing, and that is to compel to compel, either by judicial means, or by the passage of new laws by Congress, to require the social media companies to engage in the best practices that are available right now to take these videos down as soon as they're posted.
Without these videos, the imams in the mosques, as well as the would-be terrorists, do not have the social media oxygen that would be ordinarily available to them.