The Benbrika group
In November 2005, Australian federal and state intelligence and law enforcement agencies carried out the largest counterterrorism raids in the country’s history as part of a long-running investigation known as “Operation Pendennis.” Seventeen people were arrested and charged across Sydney and Melbourne at that time, with another charged a week later and an additional three charged in late March 2006.²  The senior figure in the affair was Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, an immigrant from Algeria who, at the time of his arrest, was variously reported as being 45 or 46. The rest of those charged were considerably younger, mostly between 18 and 28. All except one came from immigrant families, with the dominant ethnicity among them Lebanese. A majority of the Melbourne group was Australian-born, and one of the accused was an Anglo-Australian convert to Islam. Neither the Melbourne nor Sydney groups seem to have been highly educated or wealthy. Most were tradesmen or laborers, and only one participant had a tertiary degree. Moreover, several had minor criminal records for fraud, theft and firearms charges.³

Members of the Melbourne cluster were all charged with being members of a terrorist organization involved in the fostering or preparation of a terrorist act (a legal designation under Australian law). Some were also charged with providing resources or making funds available to a terrorist organization, as well as possessing materiel connected to terrorism. Benbrika himself was also charged with intentionally directing the activities of a terrorist organization.⁴  The Sydney cluster faced more serious charges of conspiring to plan a terrorist attack.

The Melbourne trial commenced first, resulting in seven convictions, four acquittals, and one retrial. In February 2009, Benbrika was sentenced to 15 years in prison with a non-parole period of 12 years—considerably less than the maximum 25-year sentence available under the relevant legislation.⁵  It is possible this was due to the relatively embryonic nature of the group. For example, the court found that the group had not reached the stage of plotting to blow up specific targets.

By contrast, the Sydney cluster was more advanced, with considerable stockpiles of weapons and chemicals.⁶  In October 2009, following the longest-running criminal trial in Australian legal history, five of its members were convicted (in addition to four others who had pled guilty) and subsequently sentenced to prison terms ranging from 21 to 28 years.⁷ 

Links between the Benbrika group and global terrorist organizations seem to have been sparse. Of the Melbourne cluster, Ango-Australian Shane Kent was the only one to have attended a training camp overseas in Afghanistan where he reportedly pledged allegiance, and may have been introduced, to Osama bin Laden.⁸  Nevertheless, prosecutors dropped charges alleging Kent provided support to al-Qaeda.⁹  The Sydney cluster seems to have had some deeper international experience, with up to three of them having visited Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) training camps in Pakistan.¹⁰  Benbrika himself, however, appears to have had no sustained contact with global terrorist organizations. The only encounter on the public record was in 1994, when the British-based al-Qaeda sheikh Abu Qatadah visited Australia as a guest of the Melbourne-based Salafi imam Mohamed Omran. News reports suggest Benbrika’s radicalization can be traced to his exposure to Abu Qatadah’s speeches during that tour.¹¹

Abu Qatadah’s host, Mohamed Omran, is one of Australia’s highest-profile Wahhabi-Salafi imams, the head of the Ahlus Sunnah Wa-l-Jamaah Association, and a central figure in any consideration of radical Islamism in Australia. To date, no public evidence has emerged connecting Omran to terrorism directly, and the suspicion that surrounds him is by association. In addition to his connections with Abu Qatadah, he has been named in Spanish court documents as an associate of al-Qaeda’s Abu Dada (a charge which he has denied).¹²  At the time of Abu Qatadah’s speaking tour of Australia, and for several years thereafter, Benbrika was one of Omran’s followers. Their relationship seems to have ended some years before Benbrika’s arrest, when he left Omran’s organization because he found it insufficiently radical.¹³  Benbrika’s own followers in the Melbourne cluster appear to have continued attending Omran’s center, but there is no doubt that Benbrika was their most important influence at this time.¹⁴

Ideologically, the Benbrika group clearly held to a Wahhabi-Salafi ideology. First, the group believed in a bifurcated view of the world in which there was to be hostility between those who adhered to their version of Islam and everyone else. Second, it believed that Islam was under attack from the Western world, particularly the United States, but also Australia. Third, the group held that the perceived campaigns against Islam waged by the West in Afghanistan and Iraq imposed on the group’s members an obligation as devout Muslims to act in defense of Islam and Muslims. Fourth, that obligation took the form of an individual religious obligation to embark upon violence in Australia.¹⁵  Thus, the group’s views of their militancy were larger defensive, rather than imperial; they saw themselves as acting in the defense of Islam and Muslims, rather than proceeding from an explicit desire to Islamize Australia or the world.

Consistent with its independent, self-starting nature, the Benbrika group was informally and independently funded. Some members would contribute to a sanduq, or central fund, mainly through minor crimes such as car theft and credit card fraud.¹⁶  By all accounts, it received no external funding from well-established terrorist organizations.

Operation Neath
August 2009 saw the culmination of Australia’s second-largest counter-terrorism operation, in which five men were ultimately arrested and charged with conspiring to plan a terrorist attack on Holsworthy Barracks, an Australian Army training base.¹⁷  The apparent plan was for members of the group to kill as many Australian soldiers as they could with automatic weapons before they themselves were killed.¹⁸  The matter is currently before the courts.

The five men, all Australian citizens from Melbourne, were of Lebanese and Somali extraction. Authorities believe they were part of a broader group of 18 men, also ethnically Lebanese and Somali.¹⁹  The group seems to have similar professional and educational backgrounds to the Benbrika group discussed above. None were believed to have tertiary education, and most were either laborers or taxi drivers.²⁰  Likewise, there appears to have been an absence of a well-formulated overarching ideology; although the group was definitively Wahhabi/Salafi in orientation, its political narrative appears to have been reactive and defensive. Members regularly expressed anger at the presence of Australian troops in Muslim countries, possibly Iraq and Afghanistan, although they did not mention these places by name.²¹ 

Unlike the Benbrika group, however, there appears to be no clear religious authority figure in this case. All of those charged are young, and while the contours of the group will emerge more fully as evidence is presented in court, publicly available information suggests the group to be horizontal in structure.

The other key development in this case is the group’s Somali connection—the first alleged involvement of Somali Australians in radical Islamist activity. Indeed, a 2007 investigation by the Australian Federal Police of extremism within the Australian Muslim Somali community found no evidence of any illegal activity.²²  However, authorities believe that the group apprehended in Operation Neath possessed links with Somalia’s Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate banned in the United States, and which American authorities allege has been actively recruiting Somali-American Muslims.²³  News reports suggest several members of the group had attempted to travel to Somalia to train with al-Shabaab.²⁴  A spokesman for al-Shabaab, however, has denied the allegations, claiming it has “no involvement at all” with the group and no people based in Australia.²⁵

Individuals connected to terrorism
While the abovementioned events are certainly the most important in the history of Islamist militancy in Australia, several other individual Islamists have been convicted of terrorism-related offenses. Some of these have been Australian citizens who have made connections with Islamist terrorist groups overseas. Others are foreign nationals who attempted unsuccessfully to infiltrate Australia. None are presently active members of radical Islamist organizations. They are:

• David Hicks, an Anglo-Australian convert to Islam who travelled to Albania and joined the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).²⁶  Hicks undertook four weeks of training with the KLA and enlisted with NATO, but the conflict ended before he could do any fighting, and he was sent home under NATO orders.²⁷  Upon returning to Australia he attempted to join the Australian Army, but was rejected.²⁸  In November 1999, he flew to Pakistan, where he spent three months in a Lashkar e-Taiba training camp. From there, he traveled on to Afghanistan where he spent eight months in 2001 in an al-Qaeda training camp. He saw Osama bin Laden approximately eight times during this time, and spoke to him once.²⁹ 
  Following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, Hicks was sent to the front line to fight with the Taliban. He insists he saw no action, and never fired his weapon. Indeed, the front to which he was sent collapsed only hours after he arrived. Two weeks later, Hicks attempted to leave the country, but was captured by the Northern Alliance, which transferred him to U.S. Special Forces for $1,000.³⁰  Hicks subsequently was detained in the Guantànamo Bay detention facility for just under five-and-a-half years. He was first charged by a Military Commission in August 2004, but that commission was abolished in 2006, after the Supreme Court ruled it illegal in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Subsequently, in March 2007, Hicks was formally charged with providing material support for terrorism and tried before a Special Military Commission. He pleaded guilty and became the first person convicted by the Guantànamo Military Tribunal. He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, all but nine months of which was suspended.³¹ 
  
  Hicks has since served his sentence and been released into the community. Initially, he was placed under a control order that required him to report to a police station three times weekly. The control order expired in December 2008, however, and the Australian Federal Police did not seek to renew it—indicating Hicks was no longer considered a threat.³²  Moazzam Begg, a former Guantànamo Bay detainee who met Hicks in detention, has said that Hicks is no longer a Muslim, and ceased being one some time early in his detention.³³
  
• Joseph Thomas, who in early 2001 travelled to Afghanistan to join the Taliban's fight against the Northern Alliance. There, Thomas received training in al-Qaeda's Camp Faruq, spent time with David Hicks, and met Osama bin Laden at least once.³⁴  Thomas spent a week on the front line in Afghanistan after his training, but did not participate in any combat. Over the four months that followed, he was in contact with senior al-Qaeda figures such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohammed Atef, and Saif el Adel, seeking help with income and accommodation. He claims he did not know who these people were at the time.³⁵  With the commencement of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, Thomas remained to fight American forces. At that time, he shared a guesthouse with 9/11 planner Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and was asked by al-Qaeda's Abu Zubaida to "do some work."³⁶  Thomas' time with Abu Zubaida took him to Pakistan, where he met the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, Khalid bin Attash. Bin Attash asked Thomas to undertake an attack in Australia.³⁷  Thomas was given $3,500 and a plane ticket to Australia for this purpose. However, he has maintained at all times that he had no intention of executing such an attack, and that the money he received was merely compensation for his time and maintenance, rather than for terrorism.³⁸  Yet, before he could board his flight, Thomas was arrested by Pakistan's ISI, and subsequently was tortured.
  
  Around this time, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization questioned Thomas, who provided a detailed statement. In June 2003, Pakistani authorities released Thomas and flew him to Australia, where he remained free for around 17 months until finally arrested. Thomas was charged with receiving funds and resources from a terrorist organization that would assist in a terrorist attack, as well as with travelling on a falsified passport.³⁹  Following a high-profile trial, Thomas was acquitted of the most serious offenses—largely because most of the evidence on which they were based was tainted by his torture at the hands of the ISI. At the end of the appeal process, Thomas was finally convicted on the falsified passport charge, as well as for receiving funds from a terrorist organization. He was sentenced to nine months in prison, and upon his release, was made subject to a control order that, among other restrictions, prohibits him from contacting certain figures involved in terrorism and imposes a curfew.⁴⁰
• Faheem Lodhi, an Australian citizen, immigrated to Australia from Pakistan in 1996. In June 2006, he was convicted of acting in preparation for a terrorist attack and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. Key elements of the prosecution’s case included that Lodhi had sought information about chemicals capable of making explosives, possessed a terrorism manual, and had maps of the electricity grid.⁴¹  It is suspected that he was targeting the national electricity supply, as well as various Army barracks and training areas. During the trial, it emerged that Lodhi had trained with LeT in Pakistan, where he met al-Qaeda operative Willie Brigitte. Lodhi was also Brigitte’s main contact when Brigitte visited Australia.⁴²  Brigitte himself was deported from Australia for visa violations, before finally being convicted in a French court and sentenced to nine years in prison for planning a terrorist attack in Australia.⁴³ 
• Jack Roche, a British immigrant to Australia who converted to Islam in his late 30s. Soon after his conversion, Roche had contact with twin brothers Abdulrahman and Abdulrahim Ayub, who are suspected of being Australia’s representatives of the Indonesian terrorist group Jamaah Islamiah (JI). The Ayub twins sent Roche to Malaysia and JI leader Hambali. From there, Roche was sent to Pakistan, where he trained in explosives in an al-Qaeda camp and met Osama bin Laden.⁴⁴  Al-Qaeda subsequently asked Roche to return to Australia to gather information about the Israeli embassy in Canberra, as well as on Joseph Gutnick, a wealthy Jewish-Australian businessman. In June 2000, Roche set to work, filming the outside of the embassy. However, he could not go through with the attack and went to the Australian Intelligence and Security Organization to tell them of these events. Yet, in Roche’s words, “no one seemed to be particularly interested in what was going on.”⁴⁵ 
  
  It was only after the Bali bombings in October 2002 that Australian law enforcement and security agencies took a fresh look at domestic militancy, which resulted ultimately in Roche’s arrest and conviction for the embassy plot.⁴⁶  He was sentenced to nine years in prison with a parole period of half that time, and was released in May 2007.⁴⁷

Non-violent Islamist groups
The fact that Australia is a liberal democracy means Islamist groups can form freely and remain in existence provided they remain within the law. Accordingly, a number of Islamist organizations remain.

The most worrisome, from a security perspective, is Mohamed Omran’s Ahlus Sunnah wa-l-Jamaah Association. Nothing on the public record links the Association to violence directly, and its representatives have consistently denied their support for terrorism.⁴⁸  But public concerns surround Omran because of his connections with the al-Qaeda figures discussed above, and for his statements in support of Osama bin Laden (whom he insists did not have any involvement with the 9/11 attacks).⁴⁹ 

The other prominent Wahhabi-Salafi organization of note is the Islamic Information and Services Network of Australasia headed by Samir Mohtadi. This organization is more politically moderate than other Wahhabi-Salafi groups, and broke from Omran’s group many years before domestic terrorism became a public issue. Mohtadi testified during the trial of the Benbrika group, saying that he warned Benbrika he would notify the authorities if he intended to do “anything stupid,” and that Australia was a “peaceful country”.⁵⁰ 

A range of other Wahhabi-Salafi organizations with similar attitudes exist, most notably Sydney’s Global Islamic Youth Centre, led by Sheikh Feiz Mohamed,⁵¹  though it appears to lack the connections of Omran’s group.  None of these groups publicly advocate the forceful Islamization of Australia. To the extent they are radical, they tend to articulate their activism in defensive terms, rather than offensive ones. Mohtadi’s group is focused on dawah, or preaching, rather than the forceful transformation of society.

The most overtly Islamist organization in Australia is undoubtedly Hizb ut-Tahrir. The group attracted a slew of media attention following the 2005 London bombings, when banning the group became a public discussion in Australia, mirroring Britain’s public calls for a ban on the group.⁵²  However, while HuT is a major presence in many countries, its members in Australia are very small in number and confined mostly to Sydney.⁵³

As a nation with a British political inheritance, a very small Muslim population and a strong enduring alliance with the United States, Australia is a hostile environment for Islamist movements, particularly violent ones. Islamism has no discernible public or governmental support as an ideology. Anyone who calls publicly for the incorporation of some part of Islamic law (typically family law) into the Australian legal system faces swift denunciation, to say nothing of those who openly support more radical Islamist ideas.⁵⁴

Accordingly, none of the aforementioned Islamist organizations receive government patronage, and there is little if any evidence that their popularity and level of support in the Australian community extends significantly beyond their own memberships. Debate continues in Australia as to whether or not HuT, for instance, should be banned.⁵⁵

As the Muslim population of Australia continues to grow, both through procreation and immigration, Muslim organizations can be expected to expand in size and number. However, while an increase in the number of mosques is inevitable as a result, there is no evidence of a surge in mosque construction, and there is nothing in the public domain to suggest an impending rise in terrorist activity beyond what has been seen since 2005. It is probably true that HuT’s voice is gradually becoming louder (facilitated by media attention) but it remains closely monitored and of marginal influence.⁵⁶

Funding arrangements for Islamic organizations are more difficult to discern. The record to date suggests that would-be terrorist groups in Australia are not reliant on overseas funding for their plots, and indeed, as discussed above in relation to the Benbrika group, have attempted their own fundraising, often through fraudulent means.

More mainstream Islamic organizations have long been recipients of funding from both Australian and overseas governments. Among the most active has been the Saudi government, which is thought to have spent around AU$120 million in Australia since the 1970s.⁵⁷  It is reasonable to assume that this financial support played an important role in the emergence of Wahhabi Salafism in Australia over the decades that followed. In this regard, there have been periods of consternation in the Australian press over funding from the Saudi government, particularly of esteemed institutions such as Australian universities.⁵⁸  There is little to suggest, however, that funding flows from abroad have increased in the past decade, while the associated media coverage indicates that such funding arrangements would be heavily scrutinized once publicly known. The Australian government, too, has actively funded Islamic studies in Australian universities—most directly through the establishment of a National Centre of Excellence in Islamic Studies across three universities in three states at a cost of AU$8 million.⁵⁹  The center was conceived as part of the government’s social cohesion, harmony and security strategy, and aims at teaching Islam in an Australian context.⁶⁰

The Australian government responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent 2002 Bali bombings with a flurry of legislative activity. The suite of anti-terrorism laws introduced since that time have created new terrorism-related offenses and greatly expanded the powers of police and intelligence agencies.⁶¹  These laws have certainly been controversial for their impact on civil liberties, and there has been much criticism of the legislative process that produced them,⁶²  as well as the occasionally improper use of these powers and instances of improper conduct by police and intelligence agencies.⁶³  These new regulations, however, have netted concrete results; the terrorism-related convictions of the Benbrika group, Joseph Thomas, Faheem Lodhi and Jack Roche were all secured under the new, post-9/11 legal regime in Australia.

Some controversy has also attached to the manner in which counterterrorism raids have been conducted, particularly where excessive force has been used, or where it appears media organizations have known of them in advance. This was most clear in the case of “Operation Neath,” and has prompted an Australian Federal Police investigation.⁶⁴

Australian authorities have also taken some steps towards a social approach to counterterrorism. In September 2005, the Howard government established a Muslim Community Reference Group to look into areas of social need in Muslim communities, including those elements thought to contribute to radicalization—such as education, employment and social cohesion.⁶⁵  Similarly, some police forces around the country, including the Australian Federal Police, have expanded their community engagement programs.⁶⁶

Not all of these measures have been well received among Australian Muslims. The introduction of anti-terrorism laws caused significant Muslim protest, and these measures have been regularly criticized by Muslim groups for contributing to further alienation and facilitating coercive and intimidating behavior from authorities.⁶⁷  While there is some evidence suggesting that the impact of harsh legislation and the negative tone of public discourse are having a radicalizing effect in Australia,⁶⁸  this is impossible to quantify. Similarly, the Muslim Community Reference Group has faced criticism for being a forum for lecturing to the Muslim community and encouraging Muslims to identify radicals for the government under the guise of community engagement, as well as for perpetuating the connection between Muslims and terrorism.⁶⁹ 

Whatever the impact of these government responses has been, it remains true that the threat from Islamism in Australia, while real and continuing, is small by global standards. To date, in spite of the occasional overuse of force, attempts at law enforcement have been successful in monitoring and prosecuting the main threats stemming from Islamic radicalism. No global terrorist organization of any note has established deep links in Australia, and the threat seems to be confined to largely disconnected, home-grown and independently-organized groups. Whatever connections exist with major global organizations are typically shallow, or confined to individuals that have already been convicted of terrorism offenses.