00:00Well, we can now bring in Yann St-Pierre, who's a terrorism expert at the Modern Security Consulting Group.
00:07Thanks for speaking to France 24.
00:10Thanks for having me.
00:12How unusual would you say this kind of event is for Australia?
00:18An attack on whether it's a synagogue or an event of the Jewish community is unfortunately not exceptional over the last two years.
00:27There's certainly been a buildup, in particular, since the terrorist attack of October 7, 2023.
00:33In Israel, since then, we've monitored different types of attacks, of growing anti-Semitism, different actions that were leaning towards increased violence.
00:47And in this sense, although the scale remains the largest in 30 years, it does fit a pattern that we've seen over the last two or three years.
00:57Now, the government is proposing certain law changes restricting access to guns.
01:02Will these prevent this kind of attack from happening in the future?
01:05It could play a role, but it begins first and foremost by trying to deescalate, by finding ways to limit the polarization and the use or the idea that violence could be the best way to express political grievances.
01:21What we've seen in Australia is not limited to Australia.
01:26It's something we see in Europe.
01:27We see it in North America as well, that there's a proclivity, a tendency to use firearms, to use violence for political purposes in an increasing fashion.
01:38And therefore, limiting or increasing or restricting the gun laws in a different way could help.
01:44But it's really treating more the symptom than the cause.
01:47And in this sense, I think those laws will only be superficial and not really go at the heart of the problem.
01:54So you're saying this is a risk that looks like it's increasing along with the political climate around the world.
02:00But are there any places that are more effectively dealing with this kind of security risk?
02:05Well, there are some countries where the prevention, especially the monitoring that we know with the issue with Bondi Beach, for example, that one of the attackers had already been under or has been monitored over the last six years.
02:22The question is then, you know, what were the preventive measures that were in place to try to mitigate that?
02:29In other countries, they're more proactive because their history with terrorism has been so violent in recent years.
02:35They've had to learn from those lessons.
02:36There are certainly European countries right now that are more proactive.
02:40We know Middle East countries are more proactive as well.
02:43So there are examples around the world where being more proactive, preemptive in dealing with terrorism has certainly been more effective.
02:52And maybe Australia can learn from that as well.
02:54Yeah, you're referring to there the fact that Australia's spy agency investigated the son, the son who's the suspect of the father, one of the two shooters, for links to the Islamic State group.
03:09Now, in the aftermath of the attack, police immediately invoked terrorism laws in order to access special powers to carry out their investigation.
03:17Would you say that this is an effective mechanism?
03:20Well, it's an effective measure to help with the investigation.
03:25Unfortunately, in such cases, and we're seeing again more and more cases around the world we've seen in the last 15 years, especially, that being able to work preemptively is even more important.
03:37Therefore, the monitoring of data behavior is becoming even more important.
03:41We've seen that in the U.S. today with another announcement that they fought the terrorist plot in Germany three days ago.
03:49The same thing, they fought the terrorist plot because they were able to act in advance, reacting on information, reacting on intelligence.
03:56And therefore, yes, using special powers is important, but it's only if it helps slightly with an investigation.
04:04But it's the powers that occurred before that are a lot more useful.
04:07Yann St-Pierre, thank you very much for speaking to France 24.
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