Preventing and countering violent extremism in Africa: mining and Australia’s interests

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Australia has commercial and strategic interests in helping to prevent and counter violent extremism in Africa. Australian mining companies are engaged across the continent in Mali, Burkina Faso, Kenya and many other countries where there have been high-profile terrorist attacks and kidnappings of foreign nationals, including Australians. Those threats already affect the way Australian mining companies approach their operations on the continent. With rising risks to Australian nationals, businesses and foreign investment through the mining industry, violent extremism in Africa is a direct threat to Australian national interests.

Drawing on the findings of a newly published in-depth report, Preventing and countering violent extremism in Africa: The role of the mining sector, this paper examines how the Australian mining sector should step up efforts aimed at preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) in Africa. While the report notes that mining projects present risks that can exacerbate some of the drivers of violent extremism, it also highlights the potential to leverage the work of mining projects as a bulwark against violent extremism.

This paper shows that there’s scope for further cooperation and engagement with the Australian Government in the mining sector. The potential of the private sector in P/CVE remains underexplored. Consequently, the mining sector has an opportunity to lead by example in this field.

Raelene Lockhorst

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Dr John Coyne

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Incels in Australia: the ideology, the threat, and a way forward

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This report explores the phenomenon of ‘incels’—involuntary celibates—and the misogynistic ideology that underpins a subset of this global community of men that has become a thriving Internet subculture. It examines how online spaces, from popular social media sites to dedicated incel forums, are providing a platform for not just the expansion of misogynistic views but gender-based violent extremism.

It raises key questions regarding Australian efforts to counter misogynistic ideologies within our nation. If there’s a continuum that has sexist, but lawful, views on gender at one end and gendered hate speech at the other, at what point does misogynistic ideology tip into acts of gendered violence? What’s needed to prevent misogynistic ideologies from becoming violent? And how do we, as a society, avoid the epidemic levels of violence against women in Australia?

This report doesn’t intend to provide answers to all of those questions. It does, however, seek to make an important contribution to public discourse about the increasing trend in misogynistic ideology through examination of a particularly violent community of misogynists, and proposes a range of policy options for consideration to tackle the threat that misogynistic ideology poses to Australia.

This report makes six recommendations designed to reduce and, where possible, prevent the risk of future occurrence of incel and similar violence in Australia. The recommendations include greater awareness raising and policy recognition that incel violence can be an ideological form of issue-motivated extremism which would provide certainty that incels could formally fall within the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO)—in addition to law-enforcement agencies—and would encourage tailored education programs focused on engaging young males at risk from indoctrination in this extreme subculture (along with their parents).

Counterterrorism Yearbook 2022

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The Road from 9/11

It’s been its been over two decades since the 9/11 attacks when two planes hit the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania. Close to 3,000 people died and many others were injured, and even more people were traumatised by the experience and the loss of loved ones. Today’s release of the Counterterrorism (CT) yearbook 2022 coincides with the anniversary of the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks and the deaths of 174 people. These and other acts of terror have left an indelible mark and shaped the years that followed.

Australia’s overall security environment is increasingly challenging to navigate. Emerging threats such as information operation campaigns, cyberattacks and climate change are increasing the complexity of the world. In 2022, major geopolitical events including Russia’s war on Ukraine and China’s continuing coercive operations and aggression, occupied a significant space in national discourse. Foreign interference and espionage have continued to rise to the forefront of intelligence agencies priorities.

Yet, terrorism prevails as a significant security concern for Australia and the wider region. These continuing challenges mean that ASPI’s 6th edition of the Counterterrorism Yearbook is as important as ever.

ASPI’s Executive Director, Justin Bassi, notes in the preface of this 6th edition of the CT Yearbook, that ‘while terrorism is no longer assessed by ASIO to be our top security threat, it hasn’t disappeared and in fact continues to be one of the predominant security concerns for Australia and the region.’

The 2022 yearbook was co-edited by Katja Theodorakis, head of ASPI’s Counterterrorism, CVE and Resilience program and Gill Savage, an ASPI senior fellow, considers CT challenges through the lens of the world context, today’s challenges and explores wider policy considerations through a range of chapters from 16 expert authors. The yearbook includes chapters on trends in terrorism, precrime policing and extremism, radicalisation of teenagers, strategic competition and CT, public trust, multiculturalism and bioterrorism and resilience.

Theodorakis notes in her introduction that:

‘For most of the past two decades, terrorism and extremism were largely seen as an external issue brought to Australia by foreign problems. Even when talking about ‘homegrown jihadists’, extremist ideological motivations were generally ascribed to global terrorist sources in faraway places.’

The presence of motivated violent extremist groups continues and are increasingly accompanied by issue-specific radicalised individuals. A key aspect of the changing environment is the use of social media by extremist groups to tap into public discord arising from Covid lockdowns and vaccination mandates as well as violence driven by divisive political agendas in democratic countries such as the White House riots in 2020.

Today’s CT environment is an increasingly complex one, the impact of which hasn’t diminished. It represents a challenge that requires governments, community and academia to continue to work together.

The transnational element of a ‘domestic’ problem: policy solutions to countering right-wing violent extremism in Australia

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The rise of right-wing violent extremist (RWE) ideas bursts to the forefront of public attention in flashes of violence. Shootings and vehicular attacks perpetrated by individuals motivated by hateful views stun the public. They have also sharpened government attention to and galvanised action on addressing such violence.

These incidents of violence and these disturbing trends call for renewed vigilance in confronting RWE, which ASIO has since classified as ‘ideologically motivated violent extremism’ (IMVE), in Australia’s security agencies’ policy and law enforcement responses. As governments respond to IMVE, it is important to nuance how they conceptualise the challenges posed by RWE and, therefore, scope their solutions.

This report looks at four case studies, qualitative interviews, and expert literature to highlight important transnational dimensions of RWE, as well as expand the way governments understand the RWE threat and craft policy responses to it.

The result shows a clear need for governments to take a broader lens when understanding and responding to RWE. While governments may conventionally see terrorism in ‘domestic’ versus ‘international’ terms, RWE attackers and their sources and legacies of inspiration are not bound by national borders. Efforts to address RWE, then, should take into account these transnational dimensions while examining the challenge at hand and developing and implementing solutions.

The report’s recommendations point to early steps Australia can take to improve international collaboration and coordination on countering RWE. Our approaches and solutions must recognise this threat to democracy and include efforts to bolster resilience in democratic institutions and processes. Public trust and confidence in these institutions and processes is a critical element of this resilience to mis/disinformation broadly, and the violent extremism it enables. This report shows that it’s not only important for governments to take RWE seriously, it matters how governments do so.

Counterterrorism Yearbook 2021

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ASPI is delighted to release its 5th edition of the Counterterrorism (CT) yearbook, edited by Leanne Close, APM and Daria Impiombato. The 2021 yearbook provides a comprehensive picture of the current global terrorism landscape. The yearbook’s 29 authors found Covid-19—a key theme in most chapters—to have had an impact on global terrorism. However, pervasive online social media platforms have played a more significant role, increasing terrorists’ ability to radicalise and incite individuals to commit terrorist acts, as well as encouraging financial support to terrorist groups.

The yearbook begins with an overview of current trends and the terrorism landscape in 2020 identified in the 8th Global Terrorism Index (GTI) produced by Australia’s Institute for Economics and Peace.

As well as analysis of the impacts of Covid-19 on terrorist threats globally, several key themes emerge from the yearbook’s chapters, consistent with the trends identified in the GTI. These include the impact of social media and technology on terrorist events and radicalisation, and a nexus between terrorism and organised crime. One concerning example highlights the impact of natural disasters on violent extremism, with a study of 167 countries over 30 years from 1970, which found that an increase in deaths from natural disasters resulted in an increase in terrorism-related deaths and attacks in the following two years.

Strong examples of prevention and strategies to counter violent extremism are outlined in the yearbook, providing governments and CT practitioners with contemporary analysis of current and emerging challenges and offering key policy recommendations to combat radicalisation, violent extremism and terrorism in all its forms.

The post-caliphate Salafi-jihadi environment

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In 2019, the global Salafi-jihadi architecture is very different from the one that emerged in September 2001, when transnational terrorism burst on to the international scene, or July 2014, when ISIL controlled more than 34,000 square miles in Syria and Iraq and thousands of young men and women were flocking to be part of its ‘caliphate’.

Many of the leaders of the Salafi-jihadi movement are gone. Some, like Osama bin Laden and Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, have been killed, and many others have been captured or are in hiding. And yet, despite having no territory and having lost many of their leaders, both al-Qaeda and ISIL continue to pose a threat to the maintenance of international peace and security. In fact, one could argue that they pose more of a threat today, as the structure of the groups has moved from integrated to fragmented, making command and control more tenuous.

In 2018, there were at least 66 Salafi-Jihadi groups around the world, the same number as in 2016 and three times as many as there were in 2001. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has pointed out that in 2018 there were at least 218,000 Salafi-jihadis and allied fighters around the world—a 270% increase.1 These figures indicate that, despite 18 years of combat and the spending of trillions of dollars, we’re nowhere near ending the jihadist threat, as the ideology continues to resonate with people.

This Strategic Insight reviews the post-caliphate Salafi-jihadi environment, focusing on two issues: the franchising strategy of al-Qaeda and Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the evolving threat of online messaging. I highlight a change in the threat posed by Salafi-jihadis to Australia; it’s now less a ‘top-down’ threat than a ‘bottom-up’ one and emanates from homegrown individuals whose links with and understanding of Salafist-jihadism are minimal. Consequently, I offer three sets of recommendations for how Australia’s official counterterrorism community should change its strategies.

18 years and counting

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This report provides a general overview of what successive Australian governments have done since 9/11 to counter the threat posed by Salafi-jihadi to the maintenance of international peace and security, to regional security and to domestic security.

Since 2014, the threat level in Australia has been assessed as ‘Probable’, which means that credible intelligence exists to indicate that individuals or groups continue to possess the intent and capability to conduct a terrorist attack in Australia. Both Melbourne and Sydney have featured in jihadist videos and publications.

Jemaah Islamiyah: An uncertain future

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The reappearance of JI has major relevance for Australia given that Indonesia is a large and important strategic partner; any threats to Jakarta’s internal stability must therefore occupy a central place in Canberra’s foreign, defence and security calculations.

This is especially true at a time when Australia is seeking to court a closer relationship with Indonesia in response to Beijing’s increased assertiveness in the region and its uncompromising stance on territorial disputes in the South China Sea. At the same time, Australia has been directly caught in the cross-hairs of JI’s past violent activities, with the 2002 bombings in Bali remaining the largest loss of life to a terrorist attack in the nation’s history. 

Australia could do several things to help Indonesia in dealing with the re-emergent JI threat:

  • First, the scope of support that Canberra is currently providing for Jakarta’s evolving strategy of countering violent extremism could be further expanded, particularly by better leveraging civil society organisations in program design and implementation.
  • Second, advice could be rendered on how best to ensure that kinetic counterterrorist responses don’t boost the JI missive that Jakarta’s secular order is inherently biased against the country’s Muslim interests.
  • Third, assistance could be provided to support reform of the national penal system, which in many respects continues to act as an important incubator for terrorist indoctrination and recruitment.
  • Fourth, best practices for restricting online vectors for disseminating extremist propaganda could be shared. Assisting with the development of the nascent Bandan Siber dan Sandi Negara (National Cyber and Encryption Agency) would be useful in this regard.
  • Finally, Australia could serve as an intermediary between Jakarta and Manila for determining whether there are any concrete indications that JI is seeking to reconsolidate its logistical presence in Mindanao. One potential mechanism that could be leveraged to promote this dialogue is the existing trilateral commission supporting Malaysia–Philippines–Indonesia (MALPHINDO) naval patrols in the Sulu and Celebes seas.