New Orleans attack a ‘wake-up call’ on terrorism in Australia

Australian authorities must remain on high alert for lone-wolf-style radical Islamic terrorist attacks similar to the rampage that killed 14 people in New Orleans, national security experts have warned.

Islamic State (IS) and other terrorist groups were seeking to harness anger about the war in Gaza to gain recruits, the experts said as they urged authorities not to lose sight of the terrorism threat amid a focus on foreign interference and espionage.

FBI deputy assistant director for counterterrorism Christopher Raia said former US Army soldier Shamsud-Din Jabbar was “100 per cent inspired by ISIS” even though he appeared to act alone in carrying out his deadly attack.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar died in a shootout with police. In the truck, they found an Islamic State group flag.Credit: FBI, Getty

Jabbar drove into New Year’s revellers in the popular Bourbon Street area as the city prepared to host the Sugar Bowl college football quarter-final.

Clive Williams, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, said IS was not as fearsome as it was at its peak a decade ago, when it controlled swaths of Iraq and Syria, but had been gaining ground in Africa and continued to attract Western recruits.

“It’s a wake-up call to everyone that these incidents can occur,” Williams said of the New Orleans attack.

“The Islamic State is still a concern for Western countries.”

A New Orleans-style attack was less likely in Australia because law enforcement agencies tended to do a better job organising security for major events, he said.

Williams, a former Australian Army intelligence officer, said American authorities appeared to be “a bit complacent” about the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, urging domestic spy agency ASIO to remain vigilant.

“Foreign interference and espionage have become more of a priority in recent years, and that means that less priority has naturally been put into terrorism,” he said.

“I think there has been a belated appreciation that terrorism needs to be more on the radar than it has been.”

Williams said IS had been trying to capitalise on anger over the war in Gaza and use it as a radicalisation tool.

ASIO raised the national terrorism threat level from possible to probable in August, meaning it believed there was more than a 50 per cent chance of someone planning or carrying out an attack over the following 12 months.

An ASIO spokesperson said the most likely cause of a terrorist attack in Australia was an individual or small group moving to violence with little or no warning and using a readily available weapon such as a knife or vehicle.

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess has pointed out that all recent terrorist attacks or foiled incidents in Australia had involved young people, lone actors or small groups and low-capability weapons.

Few of the alleged perpetrators were previously known to ASIO or police and most gave little warning before moving to violence.

Terrorism expert Rodger Shanahan, author of Islamic State in Australia, said he was shocked by the seeming lack of security ahead of the high-profile US college football game.

“How could you leave somewhere like Bourbon Street open during a major event with only one police vehicle patrolling it?” he said.

“This didn’t come out of the blue. It reflects the persistence of Islamic State terrorism, and Australia could be one of the targets.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson told 2GB the “absolutely tragic” New Orleans attack showed that people inspired by IS “still exist all around the world, including in Australia”.

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