Director-General's Address
Security in Government Conference
A Step Ahead: The Challenge for Counter-Terrorism
9 May 2006

• Thank you Mr Chairman for the opportunity to address this conference.
• I have titled my talk today 'A Step Ahead: The Challenge for Counter-Terrorism' because I want to focus on what I see as an essential intelligence challenge in countering the threat of terrorism now and into the future.
  • How we think about the problem of countering the threat of terrorism is fundamentally important in ensuring that we are doing the right things.
  • Indeed I believe it is more important than simply doing things the right way.
• Many of you may have seen recent press reporting about a Roy Morgan survey that found people are now much less concerned about terrorism than they were after the London bombings.
  • The decrease in public concern about terrorism, at one level, is not surprising.
  • Public attention spans are often short and Australians tend to have an optimistic perception of the security environment.
  • Over the last five years, the issue of terrorism has rarely been far from centre-stage in the media, but Australia has not experienced a recent attack on its soil.
  • So it is almost inevitable that a type of 'terrorism fatigue', if you will, would set in.
• Unfortunately, such complacency, and the degrading of any sense of urgency, makes us vulnerable.
  • This places a special responsibility on all of us in this room.
  • As professionals working in the field we are paid to remain vigilant and thorough.

And the Government and the community have a right to expect that we are doing all that is reasonable and sensible to protect Australians from those who would harm us.

The Intelligence Challenge

• Doing all that is reasonable and sensible, for intelligence agencies at least, involves much more than simply accepting that things are as they seem and merely processing the intelligence that comes across our desks.
  • It involves more than checking information against databases or the many other processes and activities that make up the daily work of an intelligence agency.
  • It involves looking into and behind the information available to us, anticipating potential sources of threat, translating the lessons drawn from past experience into future possibilities and actively seeking out information that will give us the best chance of preventing an attack from occurring.
• What does this mean in practice?
• Compared to the situation in 2001 Australia now has many more people in more agencies focussed on the problem - whether in terms of preventative measures, investigations, or responses to an incident.
  • We are better equipped as a nation to manage the risk associated with the manifestations of terrorism that have become familiar to us over the last five years.
• Our understanding of the threat has increased, particularly its multi-dimensional and dynamic nature.
  • That allows us to prepare for a range of contingencies to make it harder for terrorists to conduct certain types of attacks.
  • But there is no sound basis for believing that terrorists have exhausted all avenues to achieve their objectives.
  • Or indeed that we already have conceived all possible attack scenarios and can take action to prevent them from occurring.
  • At least some future threats are likely to remain unknown or hidden from us.
  • And attacks could occur without warning.
• Even a cursory examination of recent attacks clearly illustrates the diversity of scenarios and the flexibility and persistence of extremists:
  • The 11 September attacks were well-planned and coordinated, large-scale, aviation-based attacks by al-Qa'ida operatives who had made a temporary base in the US.
    • One of their targets - the World Trade Centre - had suffered an earlier attack in February 1993 using a vehicle-borne device that had failed to achieve its main objective of collapsing at least one of the towers.
• The attacks in Bali in 2002 and 2005 and in Jakarta in September 2004 by local extremists using person- or vehicle-borne explosive devices may have been less complex to plan and conduct but they were well-coordinated and lethal.
• The attacks in Madrid in March 2004 using remote-control bombs on crowded commuter trains were simple but deadly.
• The July 2005 bombings in London by suicide bombers who used explosives carried in backpacks further underlines the ease with which committed terrorists can plan and conduct devastating attacks.
• Richard Reid, the 'shoe bomber', was kitted out with explosive devices that pushed the boundaries of creativity and may have been successful but for the vigilance of the crew and his fellow passengers.
• The use of women and girls as suicide bombers in Israel, Jordan and Sri Lanka and the recruitment of Westerners as terrorists highlights the inappropriateness of looking for terrorist stereotypes.
• Where possible, action has been taken to minimise the risk of such attacks recurring.
  • But these are not the only scenarios we could face and we cannot rely on being well-prepared simply to counter previous threat scenarios.
  • That is what makes our task so challenging.

New Thinking?

• Prior to the 11 September attacks ASIO had a good grasp on the source of the threat - al-Qaida - and the complexity of the problem.
  • But ASIO had underestimated the scale of its ongoing impact and the sheer volume and pace of the work involved.
  • And we underestimated the extent to which Australia itself was seen by al-Qa'ida's leaders as a target.
• ASIO has had long experience in dealing with and investigating threats coming both from nation states and other sources.
  • But our efforts were spread over a variety of subjects, most of which, while posing a threat, did not have the immediacy of the threat to us from Islamic extremists today.
  • And we must be conscious always that while our attention is on the immediate threat from Islamic extremists, other sources of threat remain.
• There are difficulties in investigating and assessing the threat from individuals and groups driven by extremist religious and political ideologies intent on undertaking acts of terrorism.
  • Such individuals do not represent a conventional threat.
  • They blend in with the rest of society and are not always readily identifiable.
  • They have less-defined networks and leadership structures.
  • They are secretive and closed to outsiders.
  • They don't need to be well resourced to be effective.
  • And they are prepared to die for their beliefs.
• Such individuals, groups and networks can be elusive subjects to identify and investigate.
  • That is why the transformation of Jemaah Islamiyah into a terrorist organisation was not identified by intelligence agencies until late 2001.
  • And why it remains challenging to defeat.
• A central problem remains that terrorist groups and networks do not stay the same:
  • leaderships change;
  • networks are in flux;
  • groups continue to adapt their tactics;
  • new terrorists join existing groups;
  • new groups emerge; and
  • they find innovative ways of using technology.
• In the case of JI, for example, the death of Azahari bin Husin - who was linked to the bombings in Bali, the Marriott Hotel and the Australian Embassy in Jakarta - has not reduced the threat from JI.
  • JI has shown itself to be resilient and to be able to regenerate quickly.
• Although we are a long way from the end of this journey, there have been a number of successes along the way.
  • Fortunately, we have not had a recent attack in Australia.
  • But we have disrupted planning for attacks here through good intelligence and police work and through cooperation with allies.
• Following any terrorist attack intelligence agencies invariably seek to identify whether it could have been prevented.
• Questions are asked about what was known, and what could or should have been known, that might have enabled preventative action.
• While it is appropriate for the Government and the community to ask such questions after the event, if intelligence agencies are to be 'a step ahead' of the challenge - we cannot afford to wait until after an attack has occurred.
  • That is why we continually look to what else we can know now by ensuring we ask the right questions, by focusing our efforts in the right places, and working to identify behaviours that precede an attack.

What of the Future?

• The National Counter-Terrorism Handbook states the requirement clearly: credible and timely intelligence is essential to assessing and managing threats.
• But how do we and others gauge the success of our intelligence efforts?
  • Is it by the absence of attacks?
  • Or by the number of counter-terrorism prosecutions?
  • Or is there some other measure?
• We have to keep asking ourselves about individuals or groups of whom we have little knowledge or information.
  • We can be certain that terrorists will look for our vulnerabilities and will try to exploit them.
• So the challenge to stay ahead is an intellectual one, not just about preventative measures.
  • The objective must be to 'connect the dots', if I might use that analogy, to discern a forming pattern - despite the fact that 'the dots' are constantly changing shape and position.
  • The problem is compounded by the fact that 'the dots' are hidden in vast quantities of information, too much to process in meaningful ways using obsolete intellectual or technological tools.
  • And any finite number of dots can be joined in an infinite number of ways, many of them plausible and alarming but false.
• Cooperation and sharing are essential if we are to be effective.
• Cooperation between intelligence agencies and police is an essential element in counter-terrorism work, as demonstrated by the arrests in November 2005 and 2006.
• Another example of such cooperation across the Commonwealth government is the National Threat Assessment Centre which has just marked the second anniversary of its official opening by the Prime Minister.
• Yet another example of sharing between government and the private sector is the establishment of ASIO's Business Liaison Unit.
• The National Security Hotline has effectively tapped into the assistance of the wider community - where the response to significant calls is a combined effort between Commonwealth and State agencies.
• I'd like to conclude by saying:
  • We must continue to focus our minds on the future and devote our energies in ways that give us the best chance of preventing terrorists, and others who would do harm to Australia and its people from achieving their objectives;
  • We need to make sure our protective measures are robust and effective but that we do not let such measures lull us into a false sense of security;
  • We are in this together and for the long haul so we need to maintain and build durable partnerships; and
  • We need people who are up to this challenge to consider joining the new generation of intelligence professionals by applying to work for agencies such as ASIO.
• Thank you.