Palo Alto, California: Australia is on high alert for signs of neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists using the escalating conflict in the Israel-Hamas war for recruitment drives and potential violence, as the nation’s intelligence boss also warned that Russia and China were trying to steal nuclear technology secrets from the AUKUS submarine pact.
In a wide-ranging interview on the sidelines of the first public gathering of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s director-general of security, Mike Burgess, outlined heightened threats to the nation’s safety both from extremists activated by war in the Middle East and Chinese and Russian state actors seeking an edge in the battle for global supremacy.
Burgess’ warnings about security risks come as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to travel to Washington next week for a state visit after US President Joe Biden returns from a wartime mission to Israel.
While Burgess said he did not at this stage see evidence of extremists planning violence as a result of the war, the threat level in Australia meant it was “possible”.
“We know the neo-Nazis would be looking at this. They have it well planned as part of their awful ideology and they do not like Jewish people – and you know where that goes – so you see them firing up.
“On the other side, you would have people who are going: ‘well, Muslims are being oppressed; this is terrible, I’m feeling bad about that,’ and that might stir up their ideology to think violence is the answer. That’s what we have to look out for.”
Burgess’ comments were made at an intelligence chief’s summit between Australia, the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand. The Five Eyes group united in Silicon Valley to publicly accuse China of the most sustained and sophisticated program of intellectual property theft in history.
But the meeting at the Hoover Institute in California on Tuesday (US time) came as Israel is under pressure to explain how its own seasoned spy networks were caught by surprise when thousands of Hamas fighters breached Gaza’s fortified borders by land, sea and air in a wide-ranging killing spree on October 7.
Burgess suggested that it may not have been an intelligence failure at all, but a failure to listen to the intelligence.
“I’m confident they’ll figure it out at the right time – but now is not the right time for them,” he said.
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