The terror time

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - Terrorism is changing. Terrorism is getting harder to fight. Terrorism is a lot worse.

Those were the widely-held views at a gathering of international counter-terrorism experts in Australia's largest city this week. Hundreds of attendees - experts, academics, military, and leaders from assorted police and intelligence agencies in Canada, Britain, Australia and the United Kingdom - descended on a conference space here to share key insights and dark warnings about the mutating terror threat. Terror, and its practitioners, are not what they once were.

Terrorists of the past who rigidly held to a defined ideology - the Red Army Faction or the Weather Underground on the far Left, The Order or the Aryan Nations on the far Right - are less common, now. Said one expert: "Today, you don't need any deep understanding of ideology. You can just go and do it."

These days, the expert said, most terror activity is jihadist. That is, Muslim extremists who advocate, and use, violence against those they hate. Said he: "Seventy per cent of terror in the world is jihadist terror."

The terrorists' shared objective is clear, he told the assembled experts, who cannot be identified. "They are seeking to destroy the world. That is their project."

To recruit, to fundraise, to plan their attacks, it was no surprise to hear that the new terrorists are heavily reliant on the Internet. The main culprits online, he said, are myriad social media platforms, ranging from Facebook to TikTok to even LinkedIn.

"Ten or 20 years from now," he said, "we are all going to be talking about social media companies like we now talk about cigarette companies. They all knew about the threat. And they did nothing."

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