Australia is afraid of terrorism: Brisbane airport opens after terrorist threat
Tuesday 05/February/2019 - 01:26 PM
Shaima Hafezy
On Sunday (February 3rd, 2019), the Australian authorities closed Brisbane
Airport, one of the most active airports in the world, after a man in the lobby
of an airport restaurant announced that he had a bomb, forcing passengers to
flee.
Queensland state police said they evacuated the international flight terminal
late on Saturday (February 2nd, 2019) after finding a "suspicious
device" immediately after receiving several reports about the threat of a
50-year-old man who spoke Arabic.
Despite the exclusion of terrorism as a motive for the incident, the man was
charged with domestic violence and the false claim that he would destroy or
damage an airline, and the threat of a bomb that could kill others. According
to a police picture, the device looked like a small black box with wires
attached to it.
The man was due to appear before the court on Monday after the airport building
was reopened two hours following the incident. The authorities found the device
to be defective, but Queensland police commissioner Ian Stewart said his
complex appearance only indicated the big strides that man can make to create
an impression of danger, threat and fear.
Aimed at Canberra
However, fears in Australia that extremists - linked to Daesh organization -
may have increased further attacks after an attempt to blow up an Air Force
plane in Sydney in 2017 were thwarted.
The Australian capital, Canberra, approved new security laws last year after a
failed bombing attempt, including allowing Australian police to conduct random
identification checks at airports. A senior Australian counterterrorism
official warned in 2017 that anything may happen at any time, with the
expectation that terrorists will use different methods to carry out their
terrorist operations, such as dropping an aircraft using poison gas or a hand
grenade concealed in a meat-shredding machine.
Canberra published a national strategy to help event organizers prevent
terrorist attacks which can also target crowded places amid fears of any
terrorist act following the deadly attacks in Europe.
Australia raised the level of warning of terrorist attacks in September 2014 to
a "possible" level, the third on a 5-point scale, meaning
"credible intelligence studies by security agencies indicate that
individuals or groups still have the intention and ability to carry out a
terrorist attack in Australia while suffering from the absence of terrorist
attackers within the watch list of its authorities”.
In March last year, Australia warned Southeast Asian countries to "uniformly"
respond to encrypted email applications used to plan terrorist attacks, and
that the use of the Internet by extremists and other criminals is steadily
increasing, underscoring their efforts to put an end to financing terrorism and
countering violent extremism.
