Sixth Melbourne Man Caught in ISIS-Propaganda Investigation. How Early Should Police Intervene?

A Melbourne man accused of possessing graphic ISIS-related material has been refused bail as Australian authorities continue investigating a wider group of men allegedly accessing or circulating violent extremist propaganda.

Mohammad Emad Uddin Ahmadzai appeared before Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on 17 September charged with possessing violent extremist material and refusing police access to electronic devices.

Prosecutors allege devices linked to Ahmadzai contained ISIS imagery alongside videos depicting shootings, mass casualties, beheadings and people having their throats cut.

The allegations have not been proven.

Ahmadzai denies that possession of the material demonstrates support for a terrorist organisation.

His case matters because it does not stand alone.

It forms part of a broader Australian Federal Police investigation into a group of Melbourne men accused of possessing or sharing ISIS-inspired extremist material.

Four men were charged earlier this year after an investigation that began when suspicious material was identified on phones associated with international travel.

The latest case brings a difficult counter-terrorism question into focus.

How early should authorities intervene?

Possessing terrorist propaganda is not the same thing as planning a terrorist attack. Watching an ISIS video does not by itself establish that somebody intends to commit violence, belongs to ISIS or is acting on instructions from the organisation.

But waiting until investigators uncover an operational plot creates an obvious risk of its own.

By then, prevention may already have failed.

That leaves police and courts dealing with behaviour much earlier in the potential pathway towards violence: what people download, retain, exchange and consume online.

The internet has transformed access to extremist propaganda.

Material that once depended more heavily on physical networks, personal contacts or specialist distribution can now move between individuals almost instantly. Videos, ideological material and graphic depictions of terrorist violence can be stored on ordinary devices and circulated through digital communications.

That does not mean everyone who encounters such material becomes radicalised.

It means authorities have a much larger environment to assess.

The distinction is crucial.

Counter-terrorism cannot treat exposure to extremist content as equivalent to terrorist intent. People can possess disturbing material for different reasons, and criminal allegations still have to be established through evidence.

At the same time, propaganda exists because extremist organisations believe it serves a purpose.

ISIS built a sophisticated media operation alongside its physical organisation, using professionally produced videos, battlefield imagery, ideological material and depictions of violence to recruit supporters and project power far beyond territory it directly controlled.

Its territorial caliphate was largely destroyed years ago.

Its propaganda did not disappear with it.

That changes the geography of counter-terrorism.

An individual in Melbourne does not need to travel to territory controlled by a jihadist organisation simply to encounter its ideology or violent media. The material can reach a phone or computer thousands of miles from where it was originally produced.

The harder task for investigators is determining what that consumption means.

Counter-terrorism rarely presents investigators with a simple choice between harmless activity and an attack plot. They may instead encounter different levels of behaviour: exposure to extremist material, actively seeking it, retaining it, distributing it, communicating with ideological sympathisers and, at the far end, preparing for violence.

Those stages are not an inevitable progression. Encountering or even possessing extremist material does not establish that somebody will move towards violence. But the distinctions matter because the evidence becomes different as behaviour changes.

The difficulty is deciding where concern becomes intervention.

There is a substantial difference between encountering extremist material, repeatedly seeking it out, storing it, distributing it to others, communicating with ideological sympathisers and progressing towards preparations for violence.

Those behaviours cannot responsibly be collapsed into one category.

But investigators cannot ignore the progression between them either.

That is why early intervention has become such an important part of modern counter-terrorism.

The objective is not simply to arrest somebody immediately before an attack. It is also to identify behaviour that may indicate escalating extremist involvement while there is still time to prevent something more serious.

That approach inevitably creates difficult boundaries.

Intervene too late and authorities may miss an opportunity to prevent violence.

Intervene too broadly and possession of abhorrent ideas or material risks being treated as evidence of intentions that have not actually been demonstrated.

The Melbourne investigation sits inside that tension.

The charges concern alleged possession and handling of extremist material, not an established ISIS attack plot.

That distinction should remain clear.

Nothing in the allegations against Ahmadzai establishes that Muslims generally, Melbourne’s Muslim communities or any wider religious group share responsibility for the material police say they found.

The case concerns specific individuals and alleged ISIS-related extremist content.

It also illustrates how much counter-terrorism has changed since the period when attention centred heavily on people travelling overseas to join jihadist organisations.

The physical battlefield remains important.

So does the digital environment that survives when territory is lost.

Police now have to assess signs of extremist engagement that may exist entirely on personal devices long before investigators can establish whether they are leading anywhere else.

That makes verification and proportionality essential.

The presence of propaganda can be evidence.

It is not automatically evidence of everything that might follow from it.

Ahmadzai’s case will proceed through the courts, where prosecutors will have to establish the offences alleged against him and he will have the opportunity to contest them.

The wider Melbourne investigation may eventually reveal more about how the individuals involved obtained the material, whether they communicated with one another and what significance investigators attach to those connections.

Until then, those questions should remain questions.

But the underlying counter-terrorism problem already exists.

ISIS propaganda can reach people without ISIS controlling the territory around them.

Authorities therefore face a choice about where prevention begins.

Waiting for a terrorist plot provides a clearer threshold for intervention.

It can also provide considerably less time to stop one.

The difficult question is what evidence should justify action before that threshold is reached.

Sources

• ABC News – Melbourne man charged over alleged violent extremist material
• ABC News – AFP charges four Melbourne men over alleged ISIS propaganda