Date August 12, 2014 - 11:07PM
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David Wroe, Defence Correspondent
The Sydney Morning Herald
ASIO boss David Irvine said the conflicts in Syria and Iraq are "creating a new generation of Islamist extremists" much like Afghanistan did in the 1990s. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
ASIO boss David Irvine says Australian jihadists have carried out some of the "worst of the worst" extremist atrocities in Syria and Iraq and warns this could inspire young followers at home.
In a speech on Tuesday night, Australia’s top spy, who has adopted an unusually strong public presence in recent weeks as concerns grow about Australians fighting in the Middle East, called the current Middle East conflicts "social media wars".
"Extremists use this new media to disseminate their message, interactively bringing their gory barbarity back to Australia, with the aim of radicalising young Australians in real time as they sit at home or wait for buses and trains in the morning," he told the Institute of International Affairs.
Mr Irvine said Australian jihadists such as the now infamous Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar, who have been steadily posting gruesome pictures on web social media sites, were serving as “English-language Islamist, extremist propagandists”.
Advertisement With technology they could not have dreamed of in previous decades, they could target “often already alienated individuals, isolating and then grooming and further radicalising them”.
The conflicts in Iraq and Syria would be “central in their narrative”, he said.
The Twitter postings reached a crescendo this week when Sharrouf posted an image of what appears to be his seven-year-old son holding the severed head of a soldier in Syria.
“And it has been Australians who have been doing this, Australians involved with the worst of the worst in terms of extremist groups inside Syria and Iraq,” Mr Irvine said.
“These individuals have chosen to publicise a series of abhorrent acts of wanton viciousness with the aim of recruiting others, as well spreading panic and fear (often through social media) – and then revelling in the notoriety they receive.”
The spy boss repeatedly stressed that extremists represented only a tiny minority of the Muslim community, and praised Islamic leaders’ efforts to combat radicals as generally “outstanding”.
But he said the conflicts in Syria and Iraq were "creating a new generation of Islamist extremists" much like Afghanistan did in the 1990s.
He said these extremists would become "a cohort with whose activities and experience we spent many years subsequently having to contend".
Another notable feature of the current trend was the youth of those attracted to the movement in Syria and Iraq, with the recent alleged suicide bombing by an Australian teenager in Baghdad being a prime example.
Mr Irvine also pointedly said the current crop of jihadists were likely “only the first manifestation of this threat”.
The spy boss, whose organisation could soon be granted new powers to surveil Australians under legislation proposed by the Abbott government aimed at countering the problem of jihadists fighting abroad, also used the speech to defend the proposed legislation.
He said that while community safety needed to be balanced against individual rights such as privacy, “we cannot afford to get that balance wrong”.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-jihadists-involved-with-worst-of-the-worst-atrocities-in-syria-and-iraq-asio-boss-says-20140812-103egd.html#ixzz3ADpKqi6h
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