Remembering Mumbai: the threat to Australia

Late December 2009 was the  first anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. For Australia we look at where we are with the struggle against Jihadi terrorism. Retrospectively we can now see a pattern in recognise the role of Pakistani based Jihadists and new potential threats to Australia. Three Australians, Gareth McEvoy, Nathan Verity, and Craig Senger, were murdered in Jakarta on July 17 by al-Qaeda's South East Asian franchise, Jemaah Islamiyah. These attacks eventually led the Indonesian authorities to track down, and kill, JI chief bomb expert Noordin Top. One might have thought because of geographic proximity, that Indonesia and Jemaah Islamiyah continue to be the principal source of Jihadi danger. However in my opinion, the Mumbai attacks have a striking importance in the origin of terrorist threats to Australia. Indeed, many of the convictions for attempted terrorist attacks on Australia relate to the Pakistani Jihadi group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Let's recall what happened in Mumbai in  November 2008 . A group of ten terrorists, members of the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba, travelled by boat from Karachi to Mumbai. In a series of co-ordinated attacks across the city, they killed 166 civilians and security personnel. Many of those killed were Indian hotel and restaurant workers, including some Muslims. Among the dead were 29 foreign visitors. They included two Australians, Brett Taylor and Douglas Markell. ( An Australian documentary ‘Surviving Mumbai'  specially featured on the Anniversary, perceptively was promoted as revealing the terrorists knew more about the layout of the buildings than the staff. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/geo/documentaries/interactive/survivingmumbai/)

Lashkar-e-Taiba's terrorists made a point of attacking Jewish targets. There are few Jews in Mumbai, but the terrorists gave Mumbai's Chabad House, a Jewish outreach centre, special attention. They murdered Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his pregnant wife Rivkah Holtzberg, and six Jewish tourists.

The only attacker captured alive, 21-year-old Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, has confirmed that he was a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, recruited when he was 19 and trained a camp in Pakistani Kashmir by former Pakistani Army officers. The camp was under the protection of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistani intelligence service. The ISI is seemingly not accountable to the Pakistani government and has a long record of promoting anti-India terrorist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, who have morphed into a wider threat. ( Link for Washington Post Article on ISI- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/05/AR2008120503746.html)

Lashkar-e-Taiba is the Pakistani arm of the loose international network of Jihadi terrorist groups. They cooperate ideologically and operationally with al-Qaeda along with, Jamaah Islamiya in Indonesia, Al Shabab in Somalia and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. We now know for example, that the reconnaissance work in Mumbai for last year's attack, were done by the Pakistan-born American, David Headley (originally Daood Gilani). ( Link to Washington Post Article on arrest of David Headley- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/07/AR2009120702107.html)

He stayed in the Mumbai hotels which were the main targets of the attack. Posing as a Jew, he enjoyed the hospitality of the Mumbai Chabad House. Headley was arrested in Chicago in early October where information subsequently gained from Headley (Gilani), led to the arrest of two Lieutenant Colonels and a retired Major in the Pakistani armed services.

So far we have been spared a terrorist attack on Australian soil. But this is not something we can take for granted. Jihadi groups, particularly the Pakistani based LeT, have singled out Australia for attack, and it has only been because of the vigilance of our security forces that, so far, these plans have been detected in time and their attacks thwarted.

There are several links, between Lashkar-e-Taiba and Australia. David Hicks trained with Lashkar-e-Taiba in Kashmir, according to his own testimony. Although many seem sympathetic to Hicks because of his incarceration in Guantanamo Bay, he told a fellow detainee of his desire to "go back to Australia and rob and kill Jews" and "crash a plane into a building." Hicks has since served out his sentence, and there is no evidence of an ongoing relationship with LeT.

Faheem Khalid Lodhi, a Pakistani-Australian, was also trained by Lashkar-e-Taiba in Kashmir, along with the French LeT sleeper, Willie Brigitte. Together they planned attacks on the national electricity supply system and defence installations in Sydney. Lodhi was convicted by the NSW Supreme Court in 2006 and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, with a 15 year non-parole period. Brigitte sits in a French jail.

Another person has been charged in Australia with connections to Lashkar-e-Taiba, but those charges were dropped after a court found prosecution evidence to be inadmissible. Most recently on October 15 last year, 5 men were convicted in Parramatta court on terrorism charges. Again, there was a Lashkar-e-Taiba connection, as one of those convicted trained at a LeT camp in Pakistan. ( Link Sydney Morning Herald article on terror Charges in Parramatta- http://www.smh.com.au/national/five-guilty-in-sydney-terrorism-trial-20091016-h06l.html)

When our current anti-terrorism laws were introduced in 2004 and 2005, I and other Labor members were criticised for supporting them. I said then that I thought these laws were an unfortunate necessity.  In the wake of 9/11 and the Bali bombings we could no longer assume that Australia was immune from the threat of Islamist terrorism.  (See my article from 2006 ‘National Security is more important than Politics' published in the AFR  http://www.danbymp.com/indarch.php?article=12)

Of course we have had other recent terror convictions of local would-be Jihadists, like the Benbrika and the Al Shabab linked groups in Melbourne. But Lashkar-e-Taiba seems to have special interest in Australia, training of  individuals subsequently convicted by our courts.

The arrest of Pakistani officers in connection to the Mumbai attacks, pose a new dilemma for Australia. Part of the Pakistani state apparatus is connected with the terrorist group that has directly threatened Australia and murdered Australians. Australia has been lucky so far, but the good work of our security agencies alone may not protect us. Only continued vigilance, and the laws to make that vigilance effective, will do that. We also need to be blunt with the Pakistanis - enough is enough.

Michael Danby is the Member for Melbourne Ports and Chair of the Sub-committee of Foreign Affairs (JCFDAT).