Australia’s domestic terror threat level has been increased from possible to probable, as security agencies grapple with the rising threat of lone wolf or cell attacks driven by a mixture of ideologies.
There were 240 “non-target” marine animals including rays, dolphins and turtles caught in shark nets off New South Wales beaches over the past summer, and most of them were killed.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, made the announcement in Canberra on Monday.
Intelligence sources said the decision to raise the threat level was not triggered by any single issue or ideology, but noted an overall increase in polarisation in Australia and other western countries.
But, unlike when the threat level was raised in 2014 in response to ISIS, the threat now is the culmination of escalating risks posed by various fringe elements of society
— especially anti-government conspiracy theorists, frustration from the COVID-19 response,
and exacerbated by deteriorating social cohesion and domestic tensions around the war in Gaza.
