A Fifth Of Terrorism Cases In Australia Involve Dozens Of Teenagers

ILLUSTRATION OF UNSPLASH/Zoe Askew

JAKARTA - A fifth of priority terrorism cases investigated by Australia involve youth. "Five Eyes" intelligence partners warn about the radicalization of the younger generation.

Mental health, education, and social services need to intervene in many cases before the behavior of minors becomes a police matter, said a research paper conducted by Five Eyes, which also includes the United States, Canada, Britain, and New Zealand.

About 20 percent of ASIO's priority counter-terrorism cases involve the younger generation. In every terrorist attack, interference and alleged terrorist incident in Australia this year, the suspected perpetrators are young people, "said Director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) -General Mike totaled.

"As parents, these numbers are surprising. As an intelligence officer, these numbers are very sad," he said.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) is investigating 35 teenagers 17 years of age or younger, including a 12-year-old teenager, in a terrorism investigation since 2020, AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw said.

More than half of them were charged with committing violations.

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In one case in Australia described in the report, a 16-year-old teenager involved in a local and international network shared violent extremist material calling for attacks on non-causal people, and urging others to prepare for an upcoming race to 'defense the country'.

The teenager has little relationship in the real world and spends little time socializing offline.

He was arrested and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

In another Australian case, a 14-year-old with racist nationalist and extremist views used Snapchat's account to plan violent attacks, and after being arrested by police, he ran a program to counter violent extremism.

"We are witnessing the same extremist propaganda video in various unrelated investigations, and this shows that there are links in online environments across platforms such as Discord, Telegram, and TikTok," Kershaw said.