How the New Orleans attack impacts Australia’s terror threat

The Australian government never wanted our terror threat level to be where it is now. This is what security officials are doing after the New Orleans attack as they “take advice” from the US.

Australia’s terror threat level remains at “probable” in the wake of a horror attack in New Orleans, with security officials prepared to “take advice” from US counterparts investigating potential links to Islamic State.

No Australians are believed to have been caught up in the incident when US man Shamsud Din Jabbar ploughed through Bourbon St at 3.15am local time on New Year’s Day killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more.

The French Quarter, near Bourbon Street is blocked off late morning with a heavy police and FBI presence after a terror attack early in the morning in New Orleans. Picture: Emily Kask / AFP

A “probable” threat means there is a greater than 50 per cent chance of a terrorist attack, or planned attack in Australia in the next year, with ASIO’s latest assessment in November that the “most likely” incident would involve 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”.

Following the New Orleans attack, which is being investigated as a potential broader plot inspired by ISIS, the federal government said Australian agencies would act on any information provided by their US counterparts.

A spokesman for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the national terrorism threat level was “determined by ASIO who work every day to detect terrorist threats and keep Australians safe”.

“The Albanese Government respects our intelligence agencies and acts on their advice,” he said.

Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General Patrick Gorman. Picture: Colin Murty

Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General Patrick Gorman said “probable” was not where a government ever wanted the threat level to be.

“But that is about sharing the information that’s available to our security agencies with the Australian public so they know what to be on lookout for and what our current security situation is,” he said. 

“We’ll continue to take advice from US agencies as they investigate what potential links there are to terrorist organisations, when it comes to this attack in New Orleans, we’ll continue to take that advice.”

At least 15 people are dead after the terror attack in New Orleans. Picture: BNO News

Mr Gorman said the government would “continue to do everything we can” to “keep Australians safe at home,” but added “we all have a role to play in making sure that when we see things that maybe aren’t quite right, that we do report that to authorities”.

Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the “devastating alleged terrorist attack” in the US was a “sobering reminder of the ever-present threat of terrorism to western societies”.

“Our police, security and intelligence agencies have a critical ongoing task in thwarting attacks like this here at home,” he said. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australians were “appalled” by the “shocking act of violence” and his first thoughts were with the “victims and their loved ones”.

Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jenkins said it appeared the New Orleans attack was “sophisticated and ideologically connected to Islamist extremism” though the bigger picture question was “where is Sunni Islamist extremism at the moment?” globally.

“Internationally there’s a lot of reasons to think that terrorism is making a comeback, it never really went away,” he said.

Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jennings says Australia must be alert to the ‘risk’ of Islamic extremism. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

Mr Jenkins said terror groups under “pressure” from governments and conflicts in the Middle East could at any time revert to a focus on destabilising the “far enemy” — Western democracies — and Australia must “stay focused on this risk”.

“No Australian government is going to be faulted for looking ‘too seriously’ at counter terrorism,” he said.

“If I was advising Mr Albanese I would be saying, let’s get everyone together and see are we in the right position in terms of our resources and readiness.”

Mr Jenkins said he believed the war in Gaza was a “driving force” that may spur recruitment of extremists in Western democracies.

“Gaza was, and is, a massive billboard for extremist recruitment, that’s a real factor for the type of recruitment that we saw IS doing in the 2010s,” he said.

“The difference this time is I don’t think it’s about recruiting fighters to go to the Middle East, it’s more about potentially radicalising people in their own countries.”