New Zealand has designated US groups the Proud Boys and The Base as terrorist entities.

Set down in the government’s official journal of record — the Gazette — last Monday, 20 June, it was published publicly a week later but with no wider dissemination.

The move — authorised by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster and signed off by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern — makes anyone with property or financial dealings related to The Base and the Proud Boys liable for prosecution and up to seven years imprisonment under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

The American Proud Boys is a US neo-fascist group with members and leadership who have been federally indicted over the 6 January 2021 riots at the US Capitol.

The Base is a paramilitary white nationalist hate group active in the US and Canada, with reports of training cells in Europe, South Africa and Australia.

Commissioner Coster said in practice the designation would mean funding, supporting, or organising with those groups in New Zealand became a criminal offence.

“Those groups are respectively neo-Nazi, neo-fascist, white supremacist groups who have been responsible for some key unlawful events overseas, and so police supported the designation,” he said.

Met terrorist definition
They met the definition of terrorist groups, he said, and the designation had gone through a rigorous analytical process with input from several agencies, which generally took several weeks.

“It’s ultimately a matter for each jurisdiction to decide, but I would note that these groups have been designated in Australia and obviously they’re one of our closest partners in assessing the terrorism threat.”

He said such designations were not done lightly, but he was not aware of any suggestion it was a current problem domestically.

“It’s a preventative, deterrent mechanism for those groups not to operate here.”

Researcher into the far-right Byron Clark said most other groups on the list were Islamic terrorist groups, and the designation showed New Zealand was taking far-right terrorism seriously.

“It’s aligned I guess with what intelligence agencies are saying, that this is the biggest risk now is far-right terrorism — it’s a higher likelihood of a far-right terrorist attack than an Islamic terrorist attack in the current climate.”

It would likely mean those linked to the groups would be under more scrutiny from law enforcement and journalists, he said. With the Christchurch mosque attacker having come from Australia, there was still some complacency over the far-right in New Zealand.

‘Shared the ideology’
“There are some small groups here who share a lot of the ideology of the Christchurch shooter and I think perhaps we’re still not paying enough attention to those.”

Te Pūnaha Matatini’s The Disinformation Project researcher Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa said anti-vaccination proponents were deeply sceptical of government, had moved on to other causes, and were more often coming in contact with far-right ideologies.

“So within that constellation that is informed by mis- and disinformation predominantly, what we find are belief systems, structures, attitudes and perceptions linked to white supremacist discourse and ideologies coming in and taking root here,” he said.

“It’s no longer something you can say are imported harms because there are people within the country who are producing and mirroring that kind of discourse as well.”

He said the Disinformation Project had seen an increase in transnational funding for ideological groups in Aotearoa, which the designation could capture.

“One would hope … that the designation timing creates friction around the growth of these entities,” he said.

Fight Against Conspiracy Theories (FACT) Aotearoa spokesperson Stephen Judd said it would also send a message to people considering setting up local branches or equivalents of those groups.

‘Legitimate concerns’
“There are legitimate concerns about groups along the lines of the Proud Boys or The Base forming and operating here … you can see the same ideologies and some of the same conspiracy theories circulating online and in real life between people here.”

He said the ease of online communication meant such groups could form, organise and recruit much more easily than ever before, and develop their ideas and messages more easily.

Massey University Centre for Defence and Security Studies director Dr William Hoverd said New Zealand was following its partners: Both Australia and Canada had banned the two groups, and the US was starting to focus more on right-wing extremism.

“They are decentralised right-wing extremist groups with internet platforms who are seeking to influence others, and whilst there’s absolutely no evidence that I have seen of them operating here, that’s not to say that the right wing isn’t operating here in New Zealand.”

The designation automatically expires on 20 June 2025, unless extended or revoked.

Justification for the move
Dr Hoverd said the fact the groups were advocating armed violence, and had the capability to do it, was where the state became particularly interested in such groups.

“We’ve got groups in New Zealand and individuals in New Zealand who do have these types of profiles, but they aren’t violent – so how do we prevent that type of violence happening here.

“The big threat .. in terms of terrorism is lone actors, and decentralised groups like The Base, through the internet, could potentially radicalise someone here.”

Documents setting out the evidence and reasoning behind the designation — called a Statement of Case — had not been publicly available until after media reporting of the move.

Using referenced sources, they said the Proud Boys used a tactic called crypto-fascism — disguising their extremism to appeal to mainstream people and avoid attention from authorities — and constructed the idea of an antifa (anti-fascist) organisation as a strawman to rally self-described patriots.

Since its beginnings in 2016, the group had deliberately used violence — though to date, not typically deadly — against ideological opponents, and celebrated members who succeeded in doing so, the documents said.

“The APB have an established history of using street rallies and social media to both intimidate perceived opponents and recruit young men via the demonstration of violence.”

Detailed account
They also gave a detailed account of the Proud Boys’ involvement in the Capitol riots.

The Base was identified as a survivalist paramilitary group planning for and intending to bring about the collapse of the US government and a “race war” in the country, leading to a day of the mass execution of people of colour and political opponents.

It had achieved limited success in expanding to other countries including Australia, by targeting impressionable teenagers and socially isolated individuals lacking a sense of community, uniting a disparate body of largely online activists into a network of like-minded individuals.

“A key goal of TB is to train a cadre of extremists capable of accelerationist violence,” the documents said.

The group’s St Petersburg-based leader Rinaldo Nazzaro guided cells of three or four individuals to regularly meet and train, including at so-called “hate camps” — with at least some members having military training or skill in small arms, they said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A View from Afar – In this week’s podcast, Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning discuss: three areas that have been relied on to protect New Zealanders from terror-styled attacks; legal measures designed to protect communities from danger and even protect individuals from themselves and why they failed.

The background to this episode is the tragic, terrifying, attacks that were committed against unarmed innocent people at West Auckland’s LynnMall Countdown supermarket, by Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen.

The attacks occurred last Friday, September 3, 2021. It ended with the hospitalisation of seven people, and, the death of Mr Samsudeen who was fatally shot by special tactics Police officers during his attempt to kill and injure as many people as he could.

Immediately after, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the nation that the dead man was a terrorist and that she herself, the Police, and the courts were all aware of how dangerous he was and had been seeking to protect New Zealand from this man.

Within days of the attacks, we learned, that Mr Samsudeen was a troubled man with psychologists describing him as angry, capable of carrying out his threats, and displaying varying degrees of mental illness and disorder.

Mr Samsudeen was a refugee who sought asylum here in New Zealand after experiencing, through his formative years, civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka, who, at around 20 years of age, arrived in New Zealand on a student visa and then sought asylum.

He was eventually granted refugee status, and since then spent years in prison on various charges and convictions – largely involving the possession of terrorist propaganda seeded on the internet by ISIS, and, threats showing intent to commit terrorist acts against New Zealanders.

In this week’s episode, Paul Buchanan and Manning examine questions as to whether this tragedy could have been prevented and will consider New Zealand’s:

• Security and terror laws
• Deportation laws involving those with refugee status
• Mental Health Act and whether this was available to the authorities.

Buchanan and Manning also analyse whether it is necessary for the New Zealand Government to move to tighten New Zealand’s terrorism security laws. And, if it does, how the intended new laws compare to other Five Eyes member countries.

WE INVITE YOU TO PARTICIPATE WHILE WE ARE LIVE WITH COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS IN THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST:

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

A View from Afar – LIVE @ MIDDAY Thursday: In this week’s podcast, Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning will discuss: three areas that have been relied on to protect New Zealanders from terror-styled attacks; legal measures designed to protect communities from danger and even protect individuals from themselves and why they failed.

The background to this episode is the tragic, terrifying, attacks that were committed against unarmed innocent people at West Auckland’s LynnMall Countdown supermarket, by Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen.

The attacks occurred last Friday, September 3, 2021. It ended with the hospitalisation of seven people, and, the death of Mr Samsudeen who was fatally shot by special tactics Police officers during his attempt to kill and injure as many people as he could.

Immediately after, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the nation that the dead man was a terrorist and that she herself, the Police, and the courts were all aware of how dangerous he was and had been seeking to protect New Zealand from this man.

Within days of the attacks, we learned, that Mr Samsudeen was a troubled man with psychologists describing him as angry, capable of carrying out his threats, and displaying varying degrees of mental illness and disorder.

Mr Samsudeen was a refugee who sought asylum here in New Zealand after experiencing, through his formative years, civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka, who, at around 20 years of age, arrived in New Zealand on a student visa and then sought asylum.

He was eventually granted refugee status, and since then spent years in prison on various charges and convictions – largely involving the possession of terrorist propaganda seeded on the internet by ISIS, and, threats showing intent to commit terrorist acts against New Zealanders.

In this week’s episode, Paul Buchanan and I will examine questions as to whether this tragedy could have been prevented and will consider New Zealand’s:

• Security and terror laws
• Deportation laws involving those with refugee status
• Mental Health Act and whether this was available to the authorities.

We will also analyse whether it is necessary for the New Zealand Government to move to tighten New Zealand’s terrorism security laws. And, if it does, how the intended new laws compare to other Five Eyes member countries.

WE INVITE YOU TO PARTICIPATE WHILE WE ARE LIVE WITH COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS IN THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST:

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

A View from Afar: Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning debate:

Whether the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has accepted its failure to identify and detect terrorist planning activity in the lead up to the tragedy that occurred in Christchurch against Muslim people on March 15, 2019.

ALSO, since the Christchurch terror attacks, after the Commission of Inquiry, after all the external and internal assessments and reports, should New Zealanders be satisfied that the NZSIS is match-fit, ready and resourced, equipped to identify extremist hate ideologies and prevent them from posing threats against this country’s peoples?

If not, what needs to change?

COMMENT ON THIS DISCUSSION:

You can interact with the programme by clicking on one of these social media channels. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

A View from Afar: Security analyst Paul Buchanan and political journalist Selwyn Manning went live (Thursday, midday NZ DST) (6pm Wednesday, US EST) to discuss the Australia-New Zealand special relationship.

Has Australia acted in bad faith, revoking the citizenship of a woman detained in Turkey and suspected of being a terrorist, forcing New Zealand to open its borders to the woman and her two children?

The woman was born in NZ, left for Australia when 6 years old, became a citizen of Australia, left for Syria on an Australian passport.

Has Australia’s deportation policy destroyed the bilateral friendship? Will this matter be resolved?

COMMENT ON THIS DISCUSSION:

You can interact with the programme by clicking on one of these social media channels. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see is as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

Ref. You can download New Zealand High Court, Justice Cameron Mander’s ruling here.

In this episode of Evening Report’s A View from Afar programme we are joined by political scientist Paul Buchanan to discuss:

1) The Christchurch attacks of March 15, 2019… The sentencing hearings, how the voice of the victims has been heard.

2) But what of security intelligence errors that failed to identify the killer, Brenton Tarrant, prior to the attacks… and how did they fail to notice his comprehensive planning, surveillance, and online threats?

3) We will also discuss; How white extremism as a global threat; How they use social media, leaderless resistance tactics.

4) And what of solutions, what can be done so terrible acts of mass murder cannot happen again in New Zealand?

INTERACTION: Remember, if you are joining us LIVE via social media (SEE LINKS BELOW), you can make comments and include questions. We will be able to see your interaction, and include this in the LIVE show.

You can interact with the LIVE programme by joining these social media channels. Here are the links:

• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning
• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube

And, you can see video-on-demand of this show, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz

The world is changing fast, with digital technological innovation that is both liberating and disturbing. The threats and opportunities this presents requires a massive debate, and intervention, to ensure such changes are as healthy as possible for humanity. The online dimension of the Christchurch terrorist attacks is now provoking a sea change in attitudes towards social media.

Around the world we are now seeing attempts to rein in the tech giants with government regulations. There are blunt questions being asked about whether the likes of Facebook are “monetising hate”, and whether the dream of social media enhancing democracy and social connectedness is over.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Christchurch Call to Action campaign is currently at the most visible end of this new momentum, and commentators have declared her trip to Paris a success. For example, this afternoon Henry Cooke has concluded: Jacinda Ardern’s big day in Paris ends with her getting what she wanted.

Likewise, Gordon Campbell is impressed with how the final Paris manifesto has come together, apparently managing to satisfy all sides, including Facebook – see: On the Christchurch Call.

But the campaign isn’t over yet. According to Kelsey Munro, a research fellow at Australia’s Lowy Institute, Ardern’s bid is still a difficult one – see: Christchurch Call: Jacinda Ardern’s Paris pitch a sign of tech giants’ power.

Munro points out that attempts to regulate social media so far, have been fraught and dangerous: “Many nations around the world have concluded that the public sphere must reassert a regulatory role; the problem is how to do it within reasonable limits. No one wants anything resembling the Chinese model. Australia’s ‘knee-jerk’ reaction has been widely criticised by the tech industry and lawyers as rushed and ill-defined.”

Clearly Ardern has been keen to keep away from some of the issues around free speech that are brought up by government regulation, as I explained in my previous column – see: Ardern’s “Christchurch Call” might not be so simple.

So is her campaign going to work? There are all sorts of risks with this sort of attempt at regulation. And this is best dealt with in Henry Cooke’s article, The risks Jacinda Ardern faces with her ‘Christchurch Call’ in Paris. He outlines three broad threats: 1) Over-reach, 2) Under-reach, 3) Being used by Macron to launder his image.

In terms of those first two dangers, the Christchurch Call might end up being too strong or too weak. The third point is the idea that in collaborating so closely with the French President and other world leaders, Ardern is naively being exploited for their own electoral opportunism. Cooke suggests that Ardern might need to “make her disagreement with these other leaders clear”.

This is also the view of Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper: “What is French President Emmanuel Macron playing at? The answer’s pretty obvious, he’s trying to boost his flagging popularity at home while at the same time trying to establish himself as a world leader on cleaning up the internet” – see: Jacinda Ardern being used by Emmanuel Macron to boost his image.

Soper suggests that Macron has been rather disingenuous in his role: “If you needed any convincing that she’s being used, get a load of what happened as she was packing her designer bags for the French capital. Macron releases a 33-page report he’d commissioned… Why he couldn’t delay the release until this week’s summit is an insult to those attending. And what’s more, the investigation was only halfway through but Macron decided to make a song and dance about how well France is doing.”

The bigger problem is that Macron has a terrible record in terms of civil liberties, and is clearly no friend of free speech, which could taint the ongoing campaign to regulate social media. This is all very well explained by leftwing journalist Branko Marcetic who puts forward “a brief review of what Macron’s done while in power” – see: Jacinda Ardern must not let Emmanuel Macron co-opt the Christchurch Call.

Marcetic then asks whether New Zealanders should be comfortable with such an alliance: “This is the man Ardern is teaming up with to figure out a way to regulate online spaces. Concerns over this shouldn’t be limited to the New Zealand right – with Macron at the helm, there are legitimate worries the outcome could threaten free speech, including for that of the liberals and left that are backing such measures right now.”

He concludes: “Ardern should be careful that Macron and any other embattled leaders in the G7 don’t use this meeting as an opportunity to push measures that harm not just journalism, but all of our civil liberties. But more importantly, the New Zealand public needs to hold her to account and make sure she doesn’t.”

And some are worried that the clampdown will inevitably intrude on the traditional media. Barry Soper criticises Ardern for “trying to reign in the mainstream media’s coverage of events to ensure it’s not gratuitous, and that for all of us should be worry. It’s not for the politicians to dictate how events should be covered” – see: The media here is generally self regulatory.

It’s clear that the task of social media regulation isn’t a simple one. And one of the best outlines of the pitfalls and best practices that Ardern and co should keep in mind can found in Dan Jerker B. Svantesson’s article, It’s vital we clamp down on online terrorism. But is Ardern’s ‘Christchurch Call’ the answer?

He cautions against the “risk of hasty, excessive and uncoordinated responses” to social media problems and suggests that we are currently seeing a rush of politicians who all want to gain political capital from coming up with fast answers. He says “as part of this we must avoid hasty ‘solutions’ that will only mask the issues in the long term, and potentially cause other problems such as excessive blocking of internet content.”

Svantesson’s own list of requirements for new regulations are the following: “Effective legal regulation of the internet must be clear, proportional (balanced for all involved), accountable (able to be monitored and checked) and offer procedural guarantees (open to appeals).”

Similarly, Jordan Carter and Konstantinos Komaitis, of Internet NZ and the Internet Society, have put forward their own suggestions of what needs to underpin any new rules and laws – see: How to regulate the internet without shackling its creativity.

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark has also jumped into the debate this week with the launch of her own Foundation think tank report, titled “Anti-social Media”. This calls for a new body to be set up to regulate social media in this country in the same way that the New Zealand Media Council and Broadcasting Standards Authority does with traditional media. For an in-depth discussion of the report, see Thomas Coughlan’s How to regulate social media.

Clark has explained the thinking behind this, and how it’s partly based on her own personal experience: “What I’m concerned about is that the rising level of rhetoric on social media from people who think they can get away with just about anything… And let’s face it, they can. I have regularly reported very hateful content, and very often you just get these reports dismissed. So that’s why you now need what this report recommends, which is the statutory duty to self-regulate, and then you need the regulator overseeing that” – see 1News’ Changing hate speech laws would ‘not necessarily’ have prevented Christchurch attacks – Helen Clark.

For more on this, as well as other debates about regulation of social media in New Zealand, and what sort of agreement was expected from the Paris meetings, see Derek Cheng’s Christchurch Call summit: New rules must leave nowhere to hide. In terms of the Paris agreement, he notes that “whether it will have any teeth will be a key issue, given it will be a voluntary framework.”

A new survey out shows that there’s a strong demand amongst New Zealanders for this problem to be sorted out: “More than half of New Zealanders want livestreaming stopped until platforms work out a way to immediately remove violent or other harmful content, a survey indicates. The online survey of 1134 adults carried out in the second half of April, found 54 per cent of those questioned wanted a halt to livestreaming in the meantime. In contrast, 29 per cent thought platforms should be given time to sort out a solution” – see: Most Kiwis want livestreaming halted until violent content can be curbed: survey.

Much of the debate about the problems of online extremism and regulation comes back to The Matrix movie’s concept of being “red-pilled”, which is explained in today’s Christchurch Press editorial: “To be red-pilled is to have the shackles of delusion removed and to see things as they really are” – see: Cleaning up the dark corners of the internet. But if this sounds like a positive development, then for a bigger explanation of the problem, see Henry Cooke’s Christchurch Call could lead to work on ‘red-pilling’ of online radicalisation.

Despite the difficulties involved, there’s no doubt that the tide has turned, and there is now a significant public appetite for some sort of action to be taken that might deal with the tech giants. After all, their reach affects everything in society – including democracy and politics.

This is a point well made in a report released this week, “Digital Threats to Democracy”, which suggests that the way New Zealanders are interacting with information online “can lead to the rapid spread of incorrect information and hinder the discussion and debate of issues of public policy” – see Brittany Keogh’s Social media influences New Zealanders’ opinions on politics and hurts democracy, study says.

Finally, there’s plenty of other disturbing evidence of the brave new world we are moving into. For one of the best recent accounts of this, see Danyl Mclauchlan’s book review, Big Google is watching you. Looking at an important new book by Shoshana Zuboff, a professor of social psychology at Harvard Business School, called “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power”, Mclauchlan explains why he feels so uncomfortable at the supermarket.

The terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques this month is a watershed moment in New Zealand history.

In the days, months and years ahead much soul-searching will be conducted about the social and political factors that contributed to the massacre of 50 people. Here we shall focus on two: the spread of hate speech via social media; and the intelligence failures that may have contributed.

With the proliferation of social media platforms during the last decade, there has been a steady increase in their use by extremist groups. Be it Wahabbist and Salafists calling for jihad, 9/11 conspiracy theorists or white supremacists, it has given them global reach in a measure never seen before.

READ MORE: How Christchurch’s assault has made a mark on NZ media

#TheyAreUs

This allows extremists in disparate parts of the world to instantly communicate and reinforce their views without having to be in physical contact. They can even plot acts of violence using encrypted platforms and the so-called “dark web”.

That is what is different today when compared to 20 years ago: the threat of decentralised, even autonomous extremist violence has increased commensurate with the emergence of social media outlets that allow them to disseminate their views.

This produces both an echo chamber and megaphone effect: not only do kindred spirits find common space to vent and practice their hate, against the perceived “other,” but more moderate, mainstream outlets begin to pick and emulate some of the language used in them.

Language that was once socially unacceptable in most democratic societies has crept into mainstream social discourse, be it about immigrants, minorities, sexual minorities or indigenous groups.

Hate-mongers turn tables
Hate speech is increasingly normalised under the mantle of free speech, where the hate-mongers turn the tables on civil libertarians by claiming that their freedom of expression is being trampled by political correctness gone mad.

That, in turn, has crept into the rhetoric of politics itself, where mainstream politicians adopt some of the language and policy postures that once were only championed by a rabid yet marginalised political fringe.

One only need to remember the anti-immigrant language of certain politicians and the misogynist, homophobic and/or xenophobic utterances of assorted radio hosts and television personalities, to say nothing of the comments section of what used to be moderate political blogs, to see how the discursive trend has evolved here.

The problem is almost exclusively a democratic one. Authoritarian regimes censor as a matter of course and control the flow of information in their societies, so what can be seen and heard is up to the regime. Unless authorised or condoned by the state, extremists are not given space to air their views in public.

Democratic societies uphold the right to free speech no matter how noxious it may be because it is exactly the unpopular views that need defending. But the principle of free speech never reckoned with the practice of social and mainstream media outlets using business models that are at least in part founded on the idea that there is money to be made in catering to extreme views.

If advertising can be sold on extremist sites and offensive speech is protected, then the bottom line advises that it is not for the media conglomerates to determine what is and what is not acceptable social discourse. That is for others to decide.

This is the public policy conundrum. Where to draw the line between free and hate speech? When does offensive speech become dangerous speech?

Violence simple separation
One would think that the answer would be simple in that any calls for violence against others, be it individual or collective in nature, is what separates offensive from hate speech.

And yet to this day democracies grapple, increasingly unsteadily, with the question of what constitutes censorable material online.

With regard to whether there was an intelligence failure, obviously, there was because the massacre occurred. But the question is whether this was due to policy errors, tactical mistakes, some combination of them or the stealth of the attacker.

At a policy level, the question has to be asked if whether the intelligence services and police placed too much emphasis after 9/11 on detecting and preventing home-grown jihadists from emerging to the detriment of focusing on white supremacist groups, of which there are a number in Aotearoa.

Given a limited amount of resources, the security community has to prioritise between possible, probable and imminent threats. So what happened here? Where a small arsenal of weapons was amassed, improvised explosives made and a lot of planning done without the authorities made aware.

It is known that the security community monitors environmental, animal activist, social justice and Māori sovereignty groups and even works with private investigative firms as partners when doing so, so why were the white supremacists not given the same level of attention?

Undercover agents
Or were they? The best form of intelligence gathering on extremist movements is via infiltration of the group by undercover agents (who can target individuals for monitoring by other means).

Perhaps there simply are not enough covert human intelligence agents to undertake the monitoring of those that would do society harm. And what happens if the person is not an active member of the groups being monitored?

If this is the case, then no amount of intelligence policy reorientation or tactical emphasis would have prevented the attack. As the saying goes in the intelligence business, “the public only hears about failures, not successes”.

New Zealand, however, must “own” this terrorist attack. It happened in our community.

Dr Paul G Buchanan is the director of 36th-Parallel Assessments, a geopolitical and strategic analysis consultancy.

“Everyday racism kills every day” banner in today’s Queen St, Auckland, march against terrorism and extremism. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was written for, and first published by, German magazine Cicero.de (ref. Attentat in Christchurch – Willkommen in der Hölle). Thanks also to Prof David Robie, Pacific Media Centre AsiaPacificReport.nz for providing the featured image for this article.

OUT OF THE BLUE:

It was 1:39pm, Friday March 15. As was usual for a Friday hundreds of people had turned up to pray at the Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton, Christchurch. All was peaceful, women, children, men, people of all ages young and old, both Sunni and Shia, were in contemplative repose free of worry. It was a mild, late summer, 20 degrees celsius day. Earlier, the touring Bangladesh Cricket Team had briefly visited the mosque, but left early to attend a press conference. By 1:39pm, they had returned and were outside exiting a bus, intending to continue with their prayers inside the mosque.

At 1:40pm, ahead of the team, a man entered the mosque walking quickly up the front steps. He was carrying an assault rifle and dressed in combat uniform. He immediately began shooting people who were kneeling in prayer. The shots rang out and the Bangladesh team members realising they were witnesses to an attack, retreated, and fled on foot to nearby Hagley Park.

Back inside the Al Noor Mosque scores of worshipers were being gunned down, some killed instantly, others bleeding to death. The victims included little Mucaad Ibrahim who was three years of age.

Mucaad was known by his loved ones as a wise “old soul” and possessed an “intelligence beyond his years”.

Eye witnesses said that once the killer began shooting people, little Mucaad became separated from his family. In the chaos, his family could not find him. The next day Police confirmed he too had been shot dead by the killer.

The murders continued at the Al Noor Mosque until the killer’s firearms ran out of bullets. Then, he simply walked out of the mosque, got in his car, and drove six kilometres to the Linwood Mosque. There too were people who had gathered for their regular Friday afternoon prayers.

Mr Aziz picked up an EFTPOS (electronic funds transaction) machine from a table inside the mosque. He ran outside. He saw a man he describes as looking like a soldier. He said to the man: “Who are you”. Mr Aziz then saw three people lying on the ground dead from shotgun blasts. He realised the man was the killer. He approached the attacker, threw the EFTPOS machine hitting the killer, who in turn took from his vehicle a second firearm (a military style semi-automatic assault rifle) and fired four to five shots at Abdul Aziz, missing him. Then, in an attempt to lure the killer away from other people, Mr Aziz shouted at the killer from behind a car: “Come, I’m here. Come I’m here!”

Mr Aziz said he didn’t want the killer to go inside the mosque and kill more people. But the killer remained focussed. He walked directly to the entrance, once inside the mosque he continued his killing spree. Survivors speak of the killer wearing “army clothes”, dressed in “SWAT combat clothing”, helmeted, wearing a vest and a balaclava.

Inside the Linwood Mosque, another witness, Shoaib Gani, was kneeling in prayer. He heard a noise like fireworks but he and others weren’t too concerned and continued with their prayers. Then, as he and his fellow worshipers were kneeling speaking verses from the Koran, the man next to him fell forward with blood pouring from his head. He had been shot and killed instantly, Mr Gani said. Then others too began falling to the floor dead.

Mr Gani crawled under a table. He saw the killer and his firearm. “Written on the rifle were the words, ‘Welcome to hell’,” he said.

Victims, who were wounded and bleeding, were pleading with Mr Gani to help them. But he was frozen to a spot under a table knowing that the killer was walking around the mosque killing as many people as he could. Mr Gani believed he too would also soon be dead, so he reached for his cellphone, he called his parent’s back home in India. But no one answered. He tried to call his father’s number, but the phone kept ringing. He saw people around him bleeding to death. Others with fatal head-wounds “their brains were hanging out. I just couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know what to do.” Mr Gani phoned 111 (the New Zealand emergency number) and told the authorities people were dead and injured: “The lady on the phone asked me to stay on the line as long as I could.”

Outside, Abdul Aziz picked up one of the killer’s discarded shotguns. Inside the mosque, the killer’s assault rifle ran out of bullets. The killer then “dropped his firearm” and ran back to his vehicle. He got in the driver’s seat. Mr Aziz then ran toward the car. He threw a discarded shotgun at the killer’s vehicle: “I threw it like an arrow. It shattered his window.” Mr Aziz thinks the killer thought someone had shot at him with a loaded gun. The killer turned. He swore at Mr Aziz. When the window burst it covered the inside of the car with glass. Mr Aziz said the killer “then took off” driving in his car. He then turn right away from the mosque driving through a red traffic light and out into Christchurch suburban streets.

Some minutes later, Police and ambulance officers arrived at Linwood Mosque. Anti-Terrorist armed Police entered the mosque. Inside, Mr Gani said the survivors were ordered to put their hands up above their heads. The mass murder scene was covered in blood. The Police then secured the area. Some victims survived because they were under the bodies of the dead. Police told survivors to gather near a grassed area outside. There, people began weeping for their husbands, wives, parents, children, friends.

THE ARREST:

Seventeen minutes later, two Police officers identified the killer, apparently driving his car. They drove the police car into the killer’s vehicle, ramming it against a curb. Immediately, they disarmed the killer, cuffed him, noticed home made bombs in the vehicle – IEDs (improvised explosive devices). They arrested the man and secured the scene.

The rest of Christchurch was in lock-down, children were kept safe inside their classrooms, hospitals began to prepare for casualties, the city’s streets became eerily quiet, people were locked in to libraries, shops, their homes. Police and armed forces helicopters networked the skies. No one knew if the terrorist attacks were committed by a group of people or a lone gunman.

But back inside and entrances to the two mosques, 50 people were dead – one of the dead was discovered the next day by Police, the body was laying beneath others who had been killed. Scores of others were in hospital fighting for their lives, at least another ten were in a critical condition in intensive care. Pathologists from all over New Zealand and Australia were heading to Christchurch to help with documenting the method of murder of the dead.

Within hours of the killings, Australian media named the alleged killer as an Australian born citizen named Brenton Tarrant, 28 years of age. On Saturday morning The Australian newspaper’s front page read “Australia’s evil export”.

Other media in New Zealand followed with details of the man’s background. Brenton Harrison Tarrant appeared in court the next day charged with one single count of murder. Other charges will follow. His duty lawyer did not seek name suppression nor bail, the lawyer told the judge: “I’m simply seeking remand and a high court next-available-hearing date.” Tarrant stood cuffed, smiling at those in the courtroom, at one point signaling with his fingers a ‘white supremacist’ sign. He will next appear in the Christchurch High Court on April 5.

THE AFTERMATH:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern later told media: “It was absolutely his [the offender’s) intention to continue with his attack.” PM Ardern said: “Police are working to build a picture of this tragic event. A complex and comprehensive investigation is (now) underway.” To balance the requirement of investigation with the customs of Muslim burials, PM Ardern said liaison officers are with the victims’ loved ones to help “in a way that is consistent with Muslim faith while taking into account these unprecedented circumstances and the obligations to the coroner.”

PM Ardern said, survivors of the massacre had indicated that this attack was not “of the New Zealand that they know”.

One day later, Survivor Shoaib Gani (mentioned above) told media he still could not sleep or eat. The sounds and sights were still vivid in his head: “I still can feel myself lying on the floor waiting for the bullets to hit me.” He said, he will travel back to India to visit family, but he will return to Christchurch: “It’s just a few people, you know. You can’t blame the whole of New Zealand for this… It’s a good country, people are peaceful. Everybody has helped me here. One right wing (person) doesn’t mean everyone is bad. So I can come back here and live and hope nothing like this happens in the future.”

In the hours after the attacks, all around New Zealand, in the cities and in small country areas, Police were stationed and were ready in case others were involved and were preparing further crimes.

Beside the Police officers, people, of all races and religions, began laying flowers at the steps to their local mosques. Messages included read: “Salam Alaikum, Peace be unto you”, and, Aroha nui”, “Peace and love”, “You are one of us”. The outpouring of grief swept the South Pacific nation, and as this piece was written, a mood of support, comfort, reassurance and solidarity with those of Muslim faith was in evidence.

In Australia, Sydney’s landmark Opera House was like a beacon in the night; coloured blue, red, and white – the colours of the New Zealand flag embossed with the silver fern (Ponga) an emblem of Aotearoa New Zealand. Australia’s peoples, like in New Zealand, began laying flowers at the steps of its mosques in a gesture of inclusiveness.

In the aftermath, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed to ongoing financial assistance to dependents of those who have died or are injured, and assistance, she said, will be ongoing.

Questions are being leveled as to how a person with hate can enter, live, and purchase weapons in New Zealand while expressing hate toward other cultures and harbouring an intent to kill others.

PM Ardern said: “The guns used in this case appear to have been modified. That is a challenge Police have been facing, and that is a challenge that we will look to address in changing our laws… We need to include the fact that modification of guns which can lead them to become essentially the kinds of weapons we have seen used in this terrorist act.”

When asked how she was coping personally with the tragedy, she said: “I am feeling the exact same emotions that every New Zealander is facing. Yes, I have the additional responsibility and weight of expressing the grief of all New Zealanders and I certainly feel that.”

That responsibility includes ensuring New Zealand’s Police, the nation’s intelligence and security services and “the process around watch-lists, including whether or not our border protections are currently in a status that they should be, and, including our gun laws.”

THE BACKSTORY:

Indeed, New Zealand is part of the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence network that includes the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Global surveillance is coordinated and prioritised among the Five Eyes member states. While significant resource, technology and sophistication is committed to the Five Eyes intelligence agencies, New Zealanders fear that those who find themselves as targets, or within the scope of intelligence officers, are predominantly of the Muslim faith.

In contrast, the accused killer who allegedly committed the horrific Christchurch mosque attacks, has been active both on social media and the dark web expressing, with an intensifying degree, his ideology of hate and intolerance. It does appear of the highest public interest, certainly from an open source intelligence point of view, to ask questions of why New Zealand’s (and indeed the Five Eyes intelligence network’s) surveillance experts did not detect the expressed evil that had radicalised the heart and mind of the perpetrator of this massacre.

It is also fact, that New Zealand is a comparatively safe and peaceful nation. But within its midst are people and groups fermenting on racially-based hate ideas. Whether it be in isolation or among organised groupings, the threat of racially driven terror crimes exists.

The alleged killer, Brenton Tarrant, has lived among those of New Zealand’s southern city Dunedin for at least two years. It appears he was radicalised around 2010 after his father died and he toured Europe. He wrote about becoming “increasingly disgusted” at immigrant communities. In early 2018, Tarrant joined a Dunedin gun club and began practicing his shooting skills and allegedly planned his attacks.

Regarding Christchurch, while it has a history of overt white racist gangs, at this juncture, it does not appear they were directly involved in this series of crimes.

But this leads to many unanswered questions, including:

• Was the killer a lone mass murderer, a sleeper in a cell of one?
• Were those with whom he communicated and engaged with on the web in extreme white racist ideologies aware of his plans?
• Was Christchurch chosen by the killer for logistical reasons?
• Was it because the city is easier to drive around than Dunedin, Wellington or Auckland?
• Was it because Christchurch has at least two mosques within easy driving distance?
• Were the Bangladesh Cricket team in his scope of attacks?
• Was the killer attempting to incite a violent response from Christchurch’s burgeoning Muslim community, or, expecting a response from the Alt-Right, from white racist groups such as the Right Wing Resistance (RWR), the Fourth Reich, and Christchurch’s skinhead community?

THE FUTURE:

Survivors of Friday 15th’s terrorist attack say they have complained of an increase in racism and expressed hate in recent times. They say, their concerns have not been taken seriously. These are the concerns that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed to listen to, has committed to represent, and, as the prime advocate for her country’s peoples, to act on to ensure cracks in New Zealand’s border, security and intelligence apparatus are corrected.

And, what of New Zealand’s social culture? How will it be affected? That will be determined by the actions of each individual person, each community, town and city and how as a nation New Zealand redefines “The Kiwi Way”.

Members of New Zealand’s media will also need to act responsibly. It is fair to say some have a reputation for argument that verges on alt-right intolerance, for example, on Twitter only two days after the mass murders, a prominent radio journalist, who is employed by one of New Zealand’s largest networks, tweeted: “28 years on an [sic] we still haven’t stopped madmen getting guns. #ChChMosque… [Replying to @Politikwebsite] And the neo nationalist right are the result of the virtue signaling exclusionary left.”

Perhaps such examples are out of step with New Zealand’s population. But such attitudes do create a dialogue of justification for those who harbour intolerance. However, if the outpouring of love and compassion continues to bind rather than divide, then perhaps New Zealand has received, as they say, ‘a wake-up call’, where racial intolerance and extreme ideologies have no place among peoples of all kinds, Maori and Pakeha, of all religions, political persuasions and creeds.

One thing is certain; to stamp out the evil of hate extremism, New Zealanders will pay a price that will be charged against the Kiwi lifestyle. Personal liberties of freedom, of expression and privacy will certainly be eroded further as this nation of the South Pacific grapples with how to keep its peoples safe. The means of how to achieve relative safety will be hotly debated, but it is a necessary juncture in this nation’s history, a moment when we all must confront and challenge ourselves so that people of innocence, people like little three year old Mucaad Ibrahim, can go about their days in trust, in peace, in joyful purpose and achieve their deserved potential. Anything less is a second killing for the victims of Friday 15, New Zealand’s darkest hour.

Karina M. Tehusijarana and Moses Ompusunggu in Jakarta

Multiple deadly bombings in East Java and the brutal killing of six Indonesian police officers at the Mobile Brigade headquarters (Mako Brimob) in Depok, West Java, which took place within less than a week, have catapulted Jamaah Ansharud Daulah (JAD) into notoriety.

JAD, the largest Indonesian terror group pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group, has played a significant role in the terror attacks.

“[The attacks] are connected to JAD, which is the main supporter of ISIS in Indonesia and was founded by Aman Abdurrahman,” National Police chief General Tito Karnavian has confirmed.

A family of suicide bombers linked to JAD attacked three churches across Surabaya on Sunday morning, killing at least 12 people and injuring 41 others.

Two attempted bombings were reported at two other churches in the East Java capital.

Later the same day, another explosion was reported at a low-cost apartment in the neighboring city of Sidoarjo. The latest attack took place on Monday morning, when a bomb exploded at the Surabaya Police headquarters.

In total, 25 people, including 13 suicide bombers, were killed and dozens injured in the series of bombings in Surabaya, which resembled the pattern of attacks carried out by the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) movement at dozens of churches across Indonesia at the start of the millennium.

JI is said to have renounced violent jihad, leaving pro-IS group JAD as the most lethal terror group in the archipelago.

But what is JAD? And how influential is its founder, Aman?

ISIS supporters
But what is JAD? And how influential is its founder, Aman?

The Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) calls JAD “the largest faction of ISIS supporters in Indonesia,” consisting of followers of pro-IS ideologue Aman and Jamaah Anshorul Tauhid (JAT) leader Abu Bakar Baasyir.

The term JAD, which means “Partisans of the [Islamic] State Group,” was previously a generic term referring to anyone who had sworn allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but is now specifically used by a group that was formed in Malang in November 2015 and has chosen Aman as its ideological head.

Aman was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2004 after a failed terror plot in Depok, West Java, and was released for good behavior in 2008.

Soon after his release, Aman collaborated with Ba’asyir to form a joint terrorism training camp in Aceh in 2010 that united the different terrorist groups, leading to another prison sentence of nine years.

Despite being behind bars, Aman has been accused of involvement in several other terrorist attacks across Indonesia, including masterminding the deadly January 14, 2016, Thamrin attacks in Central Jakarta.

The firebrand cleric, who graduated from the Institute for Islamic and Arabic Studies (LIPIA), was also allegedly involved in the May 25, 2017, bombings in Kampung Melayu, East Jakarta, that killed three policemen.

Aman and his followers believe that all security forces of an ansharut thoghut (idolatrous state) should be considered kafir (non-believers), whose property can be seized and blood can be shed.

Syrian obligation
After the declaration of the Islamic State by al-Baghdadi at Mosul, Iraq in June 2014, Aman believed that the Hegira, or emigration to Syria, was the obligation of all ISIS supporters.

Shortly before the 2016 Thamrin attacks Aman issued a fatwa that was widely circulated among extremist groups:

“Emigrate to the Islamic State and if you cannot emigrate, then wage jihad with spirit wherever you are, and if you cannot wage war or you lack the courage to do so, then contribute your wealth to those who are willing to do so. And if you cannot contribute, then urge others to undertake jihad. And if you cannot do that, then what is the meaning of your loyalty oath [bai’at]?”

The terror inmates who rioted last Tuesday evening at the Mako Brimob detention center reportedly demanded to speak with Aman, who is being held at the facility, during initial negotiations with police officers, a demand that the police later met.

The police, Tito said, suspected that the Surabaya bombings were motivated by the police’s actions in arresting leaders of JAD.

“They reacted [to the arrests] by carrying out retaliatory attacks, such as that which occurred at Mako Brimob.”

The terrorists’ decision to launch the attacks in Surabaya, Tito said, may have been related to the recent conviction of the leader of JAD’s East Java chapter, Zaenal Anshari, for smuggling weapons to Indonesian militants in the southern Philippines.

Zaenal is the second-in-command in JAD after Aman.

Orchestrated attacks
The incidents in Depok and Surabaya were part of a number of recent terror attacks or attempted attacks allegedly orchestrated by JAD-linked militants.

Residents stand next to human body parts at a scene where two bombers launched an attack at Kampung Melayu bus terminal in East Jakarta on May 25, 2017. ADEK BERRY / AFPResidents stand next to human body parts at a scene where two bombers launched an attack at Kampung Melayu bus terminal in East Jakarta on May 25, 2017. ADEK BERRY / AFP (AFP/Adek Berry)

Since the Thamrin bombings in January 2016, counterterror officials have thwarted numerous attempted attacks by suspects affiliated with JAD in various regions across Indonesia.

In January 2017, the US State Department said it had designated JAD as a terrorist group, which in practice prohibits US citizens from being involved with it.

The deadly riot at Mako Brimob, which led to a 36-hour standoff between terror inmates and security forces, and the string of bombings in East Java, may have shown that the group has ramped up its capability to launch terror attacks.

Karina M. Tehusijarana and Moses Ompusunggu are reporters of The Jakarta Post.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz