Muslim Terrorists Exploit Australia's Weak Visa System

[Rev.Cambeul]

Terrorists exploit visa system flaws

Rhian Deutrom | The Australian | 31 December 2016

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/terrorists-exploit-visa-system-flaws/news-story/ea3653507e14c38f3d2568df1bcb7778?nk=5210ea90b0ec71d2453bb016f53292c9-1483152245

Terrorists exploiting temporary visas pose a "rapidly evolving threat" to Australia, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has ­declared, as he vows to crack down on short-term migration pathways.

Mr Dutton compared the risk to the situation in Europe, where a migrant launched the most recent attack in Berlin, and said a record number of visas were being cancelled by the federal government.

Analysis shows terrorists convicted and serving sentences in Australian jails had taken advantage of the immigration system by using fake passports and spousal visas or by extending their tourist permits.

The disturbing pattern has prompted Mr Dutton to order his department to "hasten the ­removal of those people who no longer have a lawful basis to be in our country", either for overstaying their visas or committing criminal offences.

The government is also spending $100 million improving visa risk assessment checks in addition to announced plans to strengthen the citizenship character test.

The warnings come as a record number of police are due to patrol celebration venues in Australian cities tonight and as a man was ­arrested yesterday at Sydney ­Airport for making threats against New Year's Eve celebrations in Sydney, where buses will also be deployed as barriers to prevent truck attacks.

"The overwhelming majority of temporary entrants are law-abiding and welcome guests. But terrorist attacks in Europe and here show that we face significant threats from extremists and criminals who exploit temporary ­migration pathways," Mr Dutton said. "This is a rapidly evolving threat to our nation's security".

The Weekend Australian can reveal that one of the men alleged to be behind the Christmas Day terror plot in Melbourne, Ahmed Mohamed, arrived in Australia on a tourist visa in 2001. He gained citizenship five years later. The Egyptian-born 24-year-old is one of five men charged after last week's police raids foiled an ­alleged Islamic State-inspired plot to bomb Federation Square, Flinders Street Station, and a midnight service at St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne on Christmas Day.

Iraqi refugee Omar Al-Kutobi, who was sentenced this month to 20 years' jail for his role in planning a deadly attack on a person in Sydney with either a machete or a knife, arrived by plane in Australia using a fake passport in 2009 before he was granted a permanent protection visa just two months later.

The 25-year-old flew in via Hong Kong and within four years had been granted citizenship, but his sentencing hearing in the NSW Supreme Court on December 9 was told he "developed significant resentment by the time he arrived in Australia stemming from the impact of war on his family". He was "generally unable to fulfil his aspirations while in Australia" and he became a depressed drug addict before hatching a ­terrorist plot.

Al-Kutobi's co-accused and flatmate, Mohammad Kiad, 27, also exploited immigration paths when he travelled from Kuwait to Australia in 2012 on a spousal visa. The NSW Supreme Court heard Kiad's arranged marriage did not last and he soon turned to illicit drug abuse before pledging his ­allegiance to Islamic State "with the misguided belief that this might give life some purpose and meaning".

The Immigration Department has since cancelled his visa under a section 501 provision that determines the validity of visas on character grounds.

Man Haron Monis, whose attack on the Lindt Cafe in 2014 resulted in the deaths of manager Tori Johnson and mother-of-three Katrina Dawson, arrived on a one-month business visa in 1996. Within weeks, ASIO was investigating him after receiving adverse intelligence. He received welfare benefits within eight months and in 1999 ASIO returned a negative ­security check, but he was eventually granted a protection visa in 2000, a year before Iran notified Australia he was wanted for fraud offences but no extradition treaty existed.

Monis was granted citizenship in 2004 after his legal representatives claimed there were bureaucratic delays because he was Muslim. "Monis was given the benefit of the doubt every time, he gamed the system," Tony Abbott said last year when a report into the failure of authorities was ­released last year. "The history of Man Haron Monis suggests there is a risk the system currently may lean too much towards favouring the rights of the individual as ­opposed to the broader interests of society as a whole."

Abdul Nacer ­Benbrika, the ­Algerian mastermind ­behind a plot to bomb the MCG in 2008, was found to have extended his one-month visa twice, before being convicted of terrorism ­offences. The family of 15-year-old terrorist Farhad Jabar, who murdered police accountant Curtis Cheng outside the Parramatta headquarters last year, was granted a humanitarian visa after travelling from Iran in 2006.

Jabar was shot and killed by police after the attack but his radicalised sister, Shadi Jabar, 21, fled to fight for Islamic State in Syria before she was killed in a airstrike.

A Europol report, released last month, found that Islamic State had been linked to more than 100 deadly terrorist plots against the West, from countries in Europe to North America and Australia, and suggested many had entered Western countries posing as refugees. "The jihadists using the ­migration flows may only be 'expendable' footmen, while highly trained and expert operatives may be provided with genuine or false travel documents and use more sophisticated routes," Europol found.

Anis Amri, the 24-year-old ­Tunisian migrant who allegedly ploughed a truck into a Berlin market this month, killing 12 ­people, was fighting the German government to have his asylum visa approved. The attack prompted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to call for stricter border-protection laws, telling a conference in Budapest that "every single migrant poses a public ­security and terror risk".

The Europol report revealed that Islamic State established specialists teams called "Emni" in Syria "which are sent to the EU tasked with carrying out attacks".

"It is believed that this external terrorism network began sending fighters abroad two years ago," the report said. "At least 10 deadly attacks against Westerners have been directed or co-ordinated by this special unit dedicated to ­exporting terror abroad.''

Nick O'Brien, head of Charles Sturt University's School of Policing and Security, said there was strong evidence of people entering Western countries with ­intent to commit terrorist acts.

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2022/10/03/syria-detention-camp-women-and-children

Dozens of women and children in Syria who are "trapped in one of the worst places in the world" will be extracted and returned to Australia after years languishing in detention camps.

There were multiple media reports on Monday of moves to rescue some 20 women and 40 children who have been living in desperate conditions in the al-Hawl and Roj camps in the country's north-east.

They are the widows, sons and daughters of Islamic State combatants who died or are in jail. Many of the women say they were tricked into travelling to Syria, some when they were just teenagers

The 60 women and children in total have been trapped in Syria since the fall of the so-called Islamic State in 2019.

The women are Australian citizens and the children, most of whom are under the age of six, were either born in Iraq or Syria.

Save the Children says the youngsters are poorly nourished and suffering from untreated wounds and some have never experienced the outside world

Federal frontbencher Tanya Plibersek said it was important the repatriated children received the support they need upon their arrival.

"We have about 40 Australian kids living in one of the most dangerous places on earth in a refugee camp," she told the Seven Network.

"Some of the women, the mothers, were taken there as little more than children themselves and married off to [Islamic State] fighters. Some of them were tricked, some of them were forced to go there.

"When they come back to Australia, it's going to be very important that the children, in particular, receive counselling."

Ms Plibersek said there would be an expectation that security organisations would stay in contact and monitor those repatriated.

Government just breaking their necks to get Middle Eastern scum back here.
Shame they weren't so enthusiastic about letting the skilled Scottish invited migrant stay with his family! 
Everywhere I go now I see towel heads!