Luck Won't Avert Next Jihadi Terror

YESTERDAY'S counter-terrorist raids across Melbourne demonstrate the radical changes that have occurred in the global jihad movement.

Indeed, it appears the Melbourne network may be a case study in the new strategy of jihadi terrorism being waged against the West by al-Qa'ida and its global affiliates such as al-Shabaab in Somalia, which pursues a particularly draconian form of Islamism and played a key role in thenetwork.

This strategy emphasises not the "defensive jihad" waged against the "near enemy" in Afghanistan or Iraq, but the "offensive jihad" against the "far enemy" in the US, Britain and other liberal democracies, including Australia.

The shift was acknowledged last October by the leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, in an interview posted on the internet. Referring to terrorist plots in Glasgow and London, he declared that "all the countries that participated in the hostility against Iraq and their crimes against our people are a legitimate target for us, no matter how long it takes".

Obviously, Australia is now a prime target under this strategy, and yesterday's Melbourne raids follow the conviction of key members of the Abdul Nacer Benbrika terrorist cell in Melbourne last September for planning large-scale terrorist attacks on railway stations, Crown Casino and football matches, including the 2005 AFL grand final, while subsequent trials have also revealed how widespread and developed the jihadi movement is in Victoria and elsewhere in Australia.

The new strategy is based on a form of leaderless jihad that is not dependent on high-profile leaders such as Noordin Mohammed Top in Indonesia. Instead, it relies on low-profile and decentralised terrorist networks and cells emerging in Muslim diaspora communities that are able to exploit local grievances and the open, fluid, dynamic and opportunity-rich environments readily provided by Western societies to plan and carry out their attacks.

The Melbourne cell matches this profile. As Cameron Stewart revealed in this newspaper yesterday, it was composed of "a nondescript group of Melbourne labourers and taxi drivers, of Somali and Lebanese descent, who were seduced by the lure of the violent Somali extremist group al-Shabaab", and who were able to travel freely about the country assessing possible targets, including the Holsworthy Barracks and other military bases.

Such cells are particularly dangerous because they are self-recruiting, self-radicalising and self-training.

They are invariably committed to savage "martyrdom operations" involving mass attacks where they are killed, conveniently eliminating themselves as vital sources of intelligence. They need relatively little financial or material support and their activities can be guided by jihadi instructional and ideological material provided within a radically decentralised global network that makes maximum use of personal contacts and the internet.

Here the Melbourne case is particularly interesting as it appears the group required little ideological and theological indoctrination because its hatred of Australia and its commitment to the jihadi cause were already so high.

It also appears that Australia was very lucky in Melbourne, because the structure of such cells makes it very difficult for counter-terrorist and security agencies to detect or penetrate them ahead of a terrorist attack. It is therefore fortunate that the Melbourne organisation was discovered at an early stage and its activities and planning monitored by electronic and other surveillance techniques.

At the level of terrorist theory the new strategy exemplified by the Melbourne case has been described in detail by the al-Qa'ida veteran Abu Musab al-Suri in his 1600-page terrorist handbook The Global Islamic Resistance Call, which is available on the internet and elsewhere.

Al-Suri, who was captured by the Americans in 2005, had carefully analysed the revolutionary possibilities of the international Muslim diaspora. He consequently advocated a global campaign designed to drain the military strength and political will of the US and the West by forcing them to fight the global jihad movement at hundreds of locations within and outside their societies.

Al-Suri believed this campaign would become self-perpetuating as the Muslim masses of the world rose up in response to what they would be made to perceive as a concerted violent attack on Islam, giving birth to a global jihadist insurgency that would engulf the world and lead to the ultimate victory of Islam. Al-Shabaab is committed to this strategy of global jihad and much of its support arises from its ability to present itself to radicals as a movement committed to imposing Islamist rule across the world.

Underlying al-Suri's strategy is a profound demographic reality, with estimates that there may already be 150 million Islamists amid a rapidly expanding global Muslim population of 1.3 billion, with millions living in diaspora communities in the West. In this context, the alleged involvement of members of Australia's Lebanese and Somali communities in this cell is a particular cause for concern, not only because the new jihadi strategy relies so much on the radicalisation and recruitment of a militant membership from Muslim communities in Western societies, but also because Somalia is the site of the al-Shabaab-led insurgency. It is therefore not surprising that "authorities fear that Australian Muslims who travel to Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab could return to Australia as sleeper agents for future attacks in this country", as Stewart notes.

As the Melbourne case illustrates, the jihadi movement is increasingly capable of franchising and underwriting decentralised and distributed systems of terrorist recruitment, training and operations on a global scale, exploiting alienated elements in the world's Muslim diaspora communities to take their jihad to the hearts of Western nations.

This new strategy demands a sophisticated response and while Australia has once again been able to rely on its counter-terrorism and security agencies, it is not clear how long our luck will last. At the very least we must do away with the obsession with language and the politically correct circumlocutions that the federal and Victorian governments are seeking to impose on discussion and debate, and be permitted to call a spade a spade, an Islamo-fascist an Islamo-fascist and a terrorist a terrorist.