The document discusses proposed revisions to Australia's counterterrorism laws announced on Tuesday. While new laws are needed to address the evolving threat of foreign fighters returning home and homegrown terrorists, laws alone are not enough. Community engagement is also vital to opposing extremism and protecting vulnerable individuals. The threat environment has changed with many more Australians fighting with extremist groups in Syria and Iraq compared to previous conflicts in Afghanistan, and these foreign fighters may return home to carry out terrorist acts. However, any legal changes still require careful consultation to avoid eroding community trust and goodwill, which are important elements of security.

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New laws only a part of the fight against extremism
TUESDAY’S announcements of revisions to counterterrorism legislation was greeted
with healthy scepticism. Given the many mistakes made over the past two decades
in dealing with terrorism, that is to be expected.
While much good has been achieved, a lot of resources have been wasted and,
much worse still, many lives lost or broken.
We are now told we are facing a new threat in the form of foreign fighters returning
home and homegrown terrorists responding to global issues. In what ways and to
what extent has the threat environment changed, and how will these proposed
revisions to legislation help deal with that? Answering the first point is relatively
straightforward; the second more complex.
Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop framed the issue by explaining that prior to the
2001 ISAF operation in Afghanistan, there were at least 30 Australians fighting with
extremists in the region. Of those, 25 returnedand about two-thirds of all who went to
Afghanistan carried on their association with violent extremism at home, with eight
eventually prosecuted and sentenced because of terror-related offences.
Australian authorities are currently concerned with five times that number of people
involved with violent extremism in Syria and Iraq. As that number continues to rise,
the threat posed is considerable.
We have had some prior warnings of the threat posed when young people travel to
foreign conflict zones, associate with violent extremists and then return home. This
was the backstory to Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the Woolwich killer,
Michael Adebolajo. Tsarnaev had been with extremists in Dagestan before returning
to Boston and Adebolajo was arrested by Kenyan authorities in 2010 on suspicion of
training with al-Shabaab.
In March 2012, the year before Boston and Woolwich, 24-year-old Mohammed
Merah went on a 10-day killing spree in southern France, shooting dead seven
people. Merah had spent time with extremists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Egypt.
And in June this year 29-year-old French national Mehdi Nemmouche was picked up
in Marseilles on a routine inspection and was found to be in possession of an AK47
wrapped in the black flag of ISIS.
Nemmouche, who had recently returned from a year fighting with extremists in Syria,

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was charged with the shooting deaths of four people at the Jewish Museum in
Brussels a week earlier.
While the violent insurgency in Iraq began immediately after the invasion of April
2003, it wasn’t until the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2012 that significant numbers
of foreign fighters travelled from Western nations and Asia to the region. Separately,
security analysts have become increasingly concerned about the threat of so-called
homegrown terrorists, such as the Boston bombers or the Woolwich killers.
Over the past year it has become increasingly clear that the foreign fighters
phenomenon, which is showing no signs of abating, and is in fact likely to accelerate
the declaration of the ISIS caliphate, is likely to generate homegrown terrorists.
In the past three years there have been five inquiries handing down reports on
proposed reforms to counter-terrorism-related legislation. In the last year of the of
the Rudd-Gillard government and the early months of the Abbott Government,
however, there was a tendency to walk away from the need for serious reform. The
rapid advance made by ISIS forces in northern Iraq in the past two months, leading
up to the declaration of a caliphate, has forced a sudden reassessment. Videos of
Australian fighters celebrating ISIS executions sent a chill down the nation’s spine.
WE know that social networks and social media and relationships are key in the
process of radicalisation whether the recruitment to fight in Syria and Iraq or to join
some other violent cause. Consequently, it makes good sense to adjust the definition
of involvement in terrorism to include a broader sense of promoting a proscribed
terrorist organisation, advocating for its cause and facilitating recruitment.
It is also important to think about how best to deal with the problem posed by online
networks and social media. And we need to be able to better track people returning
from conflict zones and understand what they have been doing. Nevertheless, the
Government needs to consult carefully on these changes. For, while law and policing
play an important role countering the threat of violent extremism, they represent only
one component.
It is equally important that we continue to work with community groups to oppose
the forces of extremism and to protect vulnerable individuals. We cannot afford to
suffer any erosion of trust, respect or goodwill, for not only are these some of the
qualities of multicultural Australian life that we value most, they also represent vital
elements of our security.

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Professor Greg Barton is Director International of the Global Terrorism
Research Centre at Monash University