THE Muslim community has failed to grasp the serious threat posed by young men travelling to the battlefields of Syria and has become “passive” in the face of a growing problem, one of Australia’s top police officers has warned.
The head of the NSW Counter Terrorism Squad, Assistant Commissioner Peter Dein, has issued a rare rebuke to senior members of the Sunni Muslim community, saying they have not done enough to discourage young Muslim men from joining the Syrian jihad.
With the number of extremists travelling to Syria believed to be escalating, Mr Dein said the Muslim community had failed to grasp the serious threat posed by returning fighters.
“The community is being very passive about the problem,’’ Mr Dein told The Australian. “They’re not openly discouraging fellow community members from travelling. There are some that do, but some community spokespeople who are well respected are not necessarily taking an active role in trying to convince the community not to travel and get involved.’’
More than 150 Australians are believed to be actively involved in the conflict in Syria. Almost all are fighting with one of two rebel jihadist groups: Jabhat al Nusra or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Both are banned terror groups.
Authorities worry that when the conflict ends, they will face a wave of trained, battle-hardened extremists, some of whom could attempt to strike at targets here in Australia. Mr Dein stressed there was “no evidence’’ that was happening yet, nor was there any acute threat to the community. However, he expressed concern at the feedback police had received from members of the Muslim community — that Syrian jihadists were interested only in toppling the regime of Bashir al-Assad. “Now the community’s saying to us, that’s never going to be a problem,’’ Mr Dein said. “Some community spokespeople are basically saying, well, those that are interested in going over there are only interested in acting on overseas soil and would never come back to the homeland with an intention to do any harm. I hope that is the case. But I just don’t know.”
Building relationships with Australia’s Muslim community has become a core element of counter-terrorism policing, both at the state and federal level. The NSW Police and the AFP meet regularly with Islamic leaders and relations between the parties are considered good.
However, police often complain about the fractious nature of Islamic politics, particularly in southwest Sydney, where much of the engagement work takes place.
And Mr Dein’s comments are a public expression of a frustration police often express privately: that the Sunni Muslim community has failed to “own’’ the Syrian problem. The president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, Samir Dandan, emphatically rejected those claims yesterday.
His community had not been supine in the face of the Syrian problem, he said, describing Mr Dein’s comments as “very unfair’’.
“The community has gone out of its way to address this,’’ Mr Dandan told The Australian. “The extremity of the problem is felt by the community. If people are killed, it’s felt by family and friends.’’
The majority of Muslims “don’t necessarily agree with the youth going to Syria’’.
Mr Dandan did echo one of the concerns raised by Mr Dein — the belief Australians in Syria are a threat only to the Syrian regime, not their communities.
“We see this as being blown out of proportion because these guys are going to fight for a cause and Australia is not part of that.”
Source: The Australian
