Saving teenagers from terror

TRYING to turn teenagers away from terrorism requires more than the threat of tough jail sentences. By that time the damage has been done.

Saving teenagers from terror

TRYING to turn teenagers away from terrorism requires more than the threat of tough jail sentences. By that time the damage has been done.

Early intervention might have stopped 17-year-old Jake Bilardi from throwing his life away as a suicide bomber for Islamic State.

Like most young recruits to terrorist groups, he was used as cannon fodder. Death in his case was at the wheel of a van packed with explosives.

A 17-year-old from a Melbourne suburb was charged with planning an explosion on Mother’s Day after police found pipe bombs at his home.

Another Melbourne teenager, Abdul Numan Haider, stabbed two police officers before he was shot dead. Several of Haider’s friends were arrested with one charged with plotting to kill police in an attack on Anzac Day.

After the Haider attack, community leaders in Melbourne’s southeast called for some way to reach disaffected youth.

The Victorian Government has now responded with pilot programs to divert young people from extremism.

Early intervention might have stopped 17-year-old Jake Bilardi from throwing his life away as a suicide bomber for Islamic State.

Three programs will start in January in Melbourne’s northern and southeastern suburbs.

Multicultural Affairs Minister Robin Scott says teenagers might love their parents, but they don’t always listen to them and the programs will concentrate on support groups within the community.

The programs are aimed at reaching young people before they become radicalised and reaching out to people who are susceptible to extremism and might carry out violent acts. Governments around the world have struggled to confront online recruitment by Islamic State. Teenagers are drawn into what they think is a romantic revolution in the Middle East in countries such as Iraq and Syria.

The reality is they can expect to lose their lives for a cause based on the violent overthrow of governments in establishing a corrupted view of Islam that carries out atrocities that have shocked the world by their violence.

Beheadings and mass executions have become commonplace with some Australian recruits posing with their children holding up the heads of decapitated soldiers.

One of Islamic State’s most successful recruiters is from Melbourne. Neil Prakash, who is of Fijian and Cambodian descent, is known as Abu Khaled al-Cambodi on social media.

Prakash has called on young Australians to “rise up’’ and urges potential recruits to wage jihad, but keep their plans secret from family members and moderate Muslims.

The anti-radicalisation programs to be introduced by the Victorian Government and financed from a $25-million “social cohesion’’ fund are based on programs that have proved successful overseas.

Local communities will be encouraged to support disaffected youths while not lecturing them or driving them further into radicalism by merely demanding changes in their attitude. The programs promise a more nuanced approach using those trusted by teenagers to gain their confidence.

It will be the first time such a sophisticated and extensively researched program has been used to discourage young adults from joining in extremism. Not only does it have more chance of succeeding in turning young men and women from violence, it may save their lives.