Radicals like Bondi Beach terrorists hide behind democracy — as Western countries limited in actions |
The horrifying attack in Sydney highlights two interrelated dynamics that have plagued counterterrorism efforts in all Western countries for decades.
The first is that Naveed Akram, one of the two who carried out the attack with his father Sajid, had been investigated by Australian authorities for connections to ISIS back in 2019 — but had not been arrested.
Data we have collected at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism shows that this is a common dynamic, as more than half of perpetrators of terrorist attacks in the West since 9/11 had been on a watch list.
Did Australian authorities make a mistake and overlook a terrorist?
Details will emerge in the coming months and it is not unlikely that........