Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is calling for help from Australians, especially those from the Islamic community, to help the country detect terror threats before they happen following a deadly attack in Melbourne’s Bourke Street on Nov. 9.
“My plea is to people within particularly the Islamic community but across society,” Dutton told reporters in Brisbane Nov. 11.
“If you have information, if you see a behaviour of an individual or family member, someone in a workplace, that causes you concern, provide that information.
Dutton noted that Duncan Lewis, the Director-General of Security at ASIO, had said that terrorists were communicating via encrypted apps to evade authorities, making it harder for police to monitor individuals of interest.
He said that such communication apps present a real “black spot” for law enforcement, and that the most effective surveillance remains from the community that interact with such individuals.
“It is important for us to get as much information from the imams, from spouses, family members, community members, council workers, people that might be interacting with those that might have changed their behaviours, that they think have been radicalised.
“The idea that community leaders would have information but withhold it from police or intelligence agencies is unacceptable and we’re best to be honest about the problem that we’ve got so that we can address it,” he said.
Dutton said that a tip-off may have filled an apparent gap in police intelligence, which could have prevented the Bourke Street attack, which he described as unsophisticated.
@abcmelbourne #bourkest source from wechat pic.twitter.com/PiHjr6UzJ1
— windix (@windix) November 9, 2018
“Where you have someone who is buying chemicals, importing or purchasing online different items that might be precursors to make up an explosive device, you would expect there to be intelligence around that activity,” he explained, but, “Where you have someone who picks up a kitchen knife and grabs a couple of gas bottles and drives into the CBD, these are very difficult circumstances to stop,” Dutton said, adding that police “are not able to contemplate every circumstance.”
Melbourne Terror Attack
On Nov. 9, 30-year-old Hassan Khalif Shire Ali set a car containing multiple gas cylinders on fire in what police believe was a planned terror attack. When his car failed to explode, Ali, who was born in Somalia, started attacking passersby with a knife, stabbing three men before police arrived at the scene.
Local Italian restaurant owner Sisto Malaspina was killed at the scene after sustaining stab wounds to the upper body. The two other victims are recovering in Royal Melbourne Hospital, one in critical condition.
Ali was shot by police during the attack and has since died in hospital.
Police have said that they were not aware that Ali was preparing an attack before the incident occurred.
Ali was confirmed to be one of about 400 people that were on a national ASIO terror watch list, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the press in Sydney on Nov. 10.
Australian Federal Police acting Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said at a press conference in Victoria on Nov. 10 that Ali’s attack was believed to have been inspired by ISIS. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack but Ali had no known links to the extremist group and ISIS did not provide any proof to their claim.
McCartney said that Ali was known by the authorities to have held radical views and that his passport had been cancelled in 2015 when he tried to leave the country. At that time, authorities say they did not consider Ali a terrorist threat. Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews said that Ali was on the terror watch list for his familial connections and associates rather than for any conduct on his own part.
Morrison said despite the great threat that “radical, violent, extremist Islam” presents the Australian way of life, Australians, including those in the Muslim community, will always “overcome these events because we are resolute.”
He said, “We will never be intimidated by those who seek to take away the very thing we value more than anything, and that is to live our lives in the way we choose to … in freedom, in liberty, with expression, where all faiths are respected and can live together happily.”
