Australia’s spy chief, Mike Burgess, has revealed that almost all foiled terrorist attacks over the past year involved the radicalization of children, while adding that the range of threats to national security is increasing exponentially.
In his annual assessment delivered in Canberra on Wednesday evening, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) director-general said the threat of terrorism and politically motivated violence is rising, with individuals "self-radicalizing” through complicated and contradictory systems of belief.
"Of all the potential terrorist matters investigated last year, fewer than half were religiously motivated. The majority involved mixed ideologies or nationalist and racist ideologies,” Burgess said in a speech.
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