Gorstra Political Extremism and Terrorism Newsletter - 6

Welcome to the 6th edition of the Gorstra Political Extremism and Terrorism Newsletter. In this edition we will explore the revised treatment of security threats in Australia, the potential for organised terrorism in Europe, Russian cyber-interference in the UK, and an emblematic terror attack in Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan.

Australia: Re-examining of 1981 Croatian Six Terrorist Case and Release of Benbrika, Convicted Terrorist in Jail Since 2005, Taking Place in the Same Week - 11-13/12/2023

Six Croatian men, arrested in 1979 on suspicion of planning to bomb two travel agents, a Serbian community club, a theatre, and Sydney water supply pipes, are having their cases re-examined. The men, sentenced to 10 years in prison after a 2 year trial, one of the longest in Australian history, had been appealing for a re-examination for years. In 2022 Judge Wright of the New South Wales Supreme Court finally agreed to grant this based on evidence that some of the evidence used to convict the men at the time was provided by someone with connections to the Yugoslav secret service. The inquiry began this month.?

At the same time, court hearings are taking place in Victoria which are expected to announce the release of Abdul Nacer Benbrika. Benbrika has been in jail since 2005 for his involvement in an extremist network in Melbourne, uncovered during Operation Pendennis. Whilst Benbrika never explicitly harmed anyone, his encouragement of others to engage in terrorist activities, promotion of extremist beliefs, and alleged planning of a terrorist attack lead to him being given a 15 year maximum security sentence. Shortly before his sentence ran out in 2020, the Albanese government stripped his Australian citizenship, keeping him in prison under a Continuing Detention Order (CDO). Since then, Benbrika has successfully appealed the decision to strip his Australian citizenship. With his CDO expiring on the 24th of December, it is expected he will be released on an Extended Supervision Order (ESO), meaning he will be free under severe monitoring.?

Both these cases have raised questions about how Australia balances national security with the fair treatment of accused persons.

Pakistan: 23 Killed in Suicide Attack on Police and Military Base in Northern Pakistan - 12/12/2023

A police station, currently in use by the Pakistani military, in the town of Daraban on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was attacked by militants from Tehreek-e-Jihad (TJP) Pakistan. The fighters had filled a vehicle with explosives and rammed it into the gate of the police station. Following this, armed suicide bombers entered the building, the ensuing blasts causing the station to collapse. As a result, 23 were killed and 34 injured as well as 6 terrorists who died in the attack. The attack comes as part of renewed efforts by the Pakistani branch of the Taliban (TTP) following the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in 2021, many fighters living in Afghanistan and crossing the border to carry out terrorist attacks.? Although the TJP is a separate group, it is closely allied with the TTP. In January this year, the combined Taliban forces in Pakistan carried out a bombing attack on a mosque in Peshawar leaving 101 dead.

Russia/United Kingdom - Concerns over Russian ‘cyber-interference’ in UK affairs - 07/12/2023

Leo Docherty, a minister in the Cameron government, has revealed to the House of Commons that Russian spies have been engaged in “cyber-interference” targeted at politically connected individuals since at least 2015. Docherty identified two groups; Centre 18, a unit within the FSB, who have been involved in cyber-espionage, centred around intelligence gathering, and STra Blizzard. Star Blizzard is a sub-group of Centre 18 that specialises in influencing “politically connected individuals”. They have worked to target British parliamentarians across parties as well as engaging in hacking. Two of the more prominent examples of this hacking include leaking documents concerning UK-US trade agreements post-Brexit in order to hamper negotiations, as well as interfering with NGOs investigating war crimes in Ukraine following the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Germany/Netherlands - Four Arrested over Cross-Border Hamas Terror Plot - 15/12/2023

Three people were arrested in Berlin and one in Rotterdam on suspicion of being involved in a cross-border terrorist plot targeting Jewish institutions in Europe. The men were known to German authorities as having long standing connections to Hamas as well as for having participated in Hamas operations abroad. The group is accused of acting on direct orders from Hamas leadership to find a weapons cache, hidden in the past, and transport the weapons to Berlin with the aim of carrying out terrorist attacks against Jewish institutions. This comes on the back of European commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, warning there was “huge risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union.” Concerns up to this point had, however, largely been focused on lone wolf attacks, such as that carried out against a German tourist next to the Eiffel Tower earlier this month. This case, as well as a similar one in Denmark that has seen three men arrested in connection with Hamas, have raised concerns around organised terrorist groups targeting Europe, leading to some European nations with significant Jewish communities looking to raise their terrorist threat levels.

This weeks edition was written and edited by Joe Earnshaw