Terror fear on sham refugees

Those naive bleeding hearts who wanted to open up a Tampa expressway into Australia should read this and weep. We need high quality immigrants, not lying , dangerous cheats.

From todays age:

The Federal Government has identified more than 200 Pakistani nationals masquerading as Afghan asylum seekers, many of whom are suspected of being linked to al Qaeda and other extremist Islamic groups.

But The Age believes the final figure could reach 1500 as investigations continue into the backgrounds of more than 3700 temporary protection visa holders.

Investigations are being conducted by a network of state-based tactical groups set up by the Immigration Department. The groups are referring visa holders with suspect security backgrounds to ASIO and federal police.

Of the total, about 400 visa holders have been confirmed as refugees and 800 found to be doubtful. About 150 have failed voice-testing, a controversial method used to identify linguistic backgrounds.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said the Pakistani Government was cooperating with Australia in providing background documents on suspect cases.


A significant number of the 200 being targeted for removal are believed to come from Quetta in Pakistan where the Taliban and al Qaeda have roots in the community and Islamic extremism is prevalent in Islamic schools known as madrasses.

The Age believes that at least 20 TPV holders have been referred to ASIO as suspected security risks. Three have been linked to Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, which was closely aligned with the Taliban. Others are suspected of fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan and yet others of working in mili-tant Islamic schools that recruited for al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Australian authorities are also acting on information provided by Muslim communities in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide.

Mr Ruddock confirmed that he had been given three lists of 101 suspected Pakistani nationals by a member of the Afghan community and that his department found that it already had information on 28 of those named. Another 17 had been referred to overseas for checking.

He said five temporary protection visas had been cancelled since his department started investigating cases earlier this year. The numbers are expected to rise as information is received from Pakistan.

But Mr Ruddock said there would be no mass deportations of Pakistani nationals. Instead, he said, cancelled TPV holders would be given a choice of going back into detention or returning home.

Inquiries by The Age among Muslim communities in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney indicate that the number of Pakistani nationals living in Australia as Afghans - and in some cases Iranians - is far higher than previously thought by Mr Ruddock, who originally put the figure at about 700.

In Adelaide, Afghan community leaders, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, said 70 per cent, or 700 of Afghan TPV holders living in South Australia had been identified as Pakistani.

Other factors also point to a large illegal Pakistani presence. According to a spokesman for Afghanistan's embassy, consular officials have been unable to identify as Afghan more than 70 failed asylum seekers wanting to accept Australia's $2000 repatriation package to go home.

The Federal Government is fighting a legal battle to remove Ali Bakhtiyari, who claims to be an Afghan from a village in central Afghanistan, on the grounds that he is a Pakistani national from Quetta.

While there is substantial documentary evidence to prove that Mr Bakhtiyari did not grow up in Charkh as claimed, his lawyers are challenging documents supplied by Pakistani authorities showing he grew up in Quetta.