Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Mike Burgess said on Monday night that right-wing terrorism was real and growing and that the number of overall terrorism leads under investigation had doubled over the past year.
.“Our view is that the threat of terrorism will remain a constant feature of the global security environment in 2020 and the threat to Australia and Australian interests will remain,” he told members of parliament, former intelligence chiefs and journalists.
Burgess said that violent Islamist fundamentalism remains ASIO’s primary concern, but that the threat of rightwing extremism was “real and growing.”“In suburbs around Australia, small cells regularly meet to salute Nazi flags, inspect weapons, train in combat and share their hateful ideology,” he said.
“While we would expect any rightwing extremist-inspired attack in Australia to be low capability, i.e. a knife, gun or vehicle attack, more sophisticated attacks are possible.”
