Thirty battle-hardened Muslims committing to waging jihad against Infidels, returning to Australia after having aligned themselves with an entity that considers itself to be at war with Australia. What could possibly go wrong? “Thirty jihadis return home to Australia after being foreign fighters,” by Annika Smethurst, AAP, February 23, 2015 (thanks to Peter):
UPDATE: THE Federal Government will appoint a new counter-terrorism boss, as its revealed more than 30 foreign fighters have returned to Australia amid the rising threat of lone-wolf attacks.
There are at least 90 Australians fighting with and supporting terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria and at least 140 people in Australia supporting extremist groups, a review of Australia’s counterterrorism co-ordination has found.
A National Counter Terrorism Co-ordinator will be appointed to improve co-ordination of the various government agencies, Mr Abbott will announce in a National Security Statement to Parliament today.
“Australia has entered a new, long-term era of heightened terrorism threat, with a much more significant ‘home grown’ element,” Mr Abbott said.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that welfare payments to fighters have continued because security agencies have not handed names to Centrelink.
Mr Abbott will also reveal that 20 people have been arrested within the space of six months, accounting for one-third of all terrorism-related arrests since 2001.
“The number of foreign fighters is increasing, the number of known sympathisers and supporters of extremists is increasing, and the number of potential terrorists, including many who live in our midst, is rising as well,” he will say in his address.
The PM’s address follows the release of a report into the Sydney siege which found that Australia’s National Security Hotline was contacted 18 times about Martin Place gunman Man Haron Monis in the days leading up to the siege.
But ASIO found Monis’s activities did not “indicate a desire or intent to engage in terrorism”….