An Australian citizen working as a senior intelligence officer for Iran “orchestrated” a firebombing in Bondi, the country’s top spy has revealed, while a former Australian resident in Iraq directed the attack on a Melbourne synagogue.
The homegrown ties to Australia’s “summer of antisemitism” are contained in a wide-ranging speech given by Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation’s (Asio) director general, Mike Burgess, on Wednesday night, in which he said the “hatred of Jews is one thing virtually all the violent extremist cohorts have in common”.
Burgess also warned intelligence officials must contend with security threats from everywhere and all at once, calling for Australians who want a safer country to be more tolerant and give others a “fair go” in order to turn down the temperature.
The intelligence chief said the anticipated crescendo of security threats against Australia by the end of the decade had already arrived, including in December’s terror attack on Bondi Beach, in which 15 people died in an antisemitic terror attack.
“Our degrading security environment is characterised by concurrent, cascading and compounding threats,” Burgess said.
Among those threats are homegrown terrorists, foreign regimes targeting and harassing citizens and permanent residents, spies chasing critical details about the Aukus deal, and nation-states infiltrating critical infrastructure providers.
The underlying theme in Burgess’s annual threat assessment is that the world’s security environment has degraded and social media is “amplifying and accelerating” an erosion of trust in institutions, promoting discord and heightening polarisation.
“Whether online or in the real world, when intolerance is tolerated, when violent language and violent acts are left unchecked, they become normalised, reinforcing the impression they are acceptable and compounding the likelihood of further violence,” Burgess said.
The Asio boss revealed two attacks linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Australia’s Jewish community were directed by two individuals living offshore with “strong ties to Australia”.
One, an Australian citizen based in Iran and a senior agent within a covert unit for the IRGC Quds Force, is credited as the person who “orchestrated” the firebombing of Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney’s Bondi.
The other, a former Australian resident living in Iraq, was behind the attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne.
“I cannot name the two individuals tonight to protect ongoing investigations and related prosecutions but I want them to understand this: we know who you are, we know what you’ve done and we know who you work for,” Burgess said.
“We assessed these individuals were seeking to covertly promote hatred, foster antisemitism and encourage violence against Iran’s perceived enemies.”
Burgess pointed to other examples where foreign nations were trying to exert influence domestically, including through coerced repatriations.
In one example, one individual experienced a 10-year intimidation campaign by a foreign government to return to the country and address unspecified corruption allegations.
The individual’s family members still living in the foreign country were “detained, interrogated and subjected to travel bans”.
At least five regimes are targeting Australians with coerced repatriations, and one is particularly active, Burgess said.
Espionage remained a persistent threat as in recent years for Australia and the domestic spy agency underscored the foreign interest in gaining critical details of the Aukus pact.
A foreign spy, disguised as a consultant company employee, gained two reports from an Australian security clearance holder on Australia’s relationship with Pacific neighbours before Asio disrupted the operation.
Burgess said the examples outlined had occurred in just one week at Asio, showing the intelligence agency’s biggest challenge was a cumulative one.
“I don’t believe we can prioritise the major threats – you must deal with all of them,” Burgess said.
Burgess ended his speech on an unorthodox note, saying he “firmly” believed that “if more Australians – not just visitors – embraced the ethos of a fair go, mutual respect and tolerance, the temperature of our security environment would be several degrees lower”.
“The tolerance of intolerance, the growth of grievance, the radicalisation of minors, the embrace of conspiracy … all these things require a whole of community response,” he said.
