Victoria's police chief has a grim warning for those who are already worried about terror activity - you ain't seen nothing yet.
Chief Commisioner Graham Ashton on Monday said foreign fighters returning home from the Middle East pose the greatest threat to Australia.
"If you think we've been busy in counter terrorism in recent years I can tell you, that's going to ramp up, and we'll be even more busy in the years ahead," Mr Ashton said at the start of a two-day international counter-terrorism forum in Melbourne.
The state's top cop says an "exodus" of foreign fighters will create a completely different terrorism paradigm for local police.
Conflict in the Middle East has created challenges with 200 Australians now part of the "foreign fighter phenomenon", Mr Ashton told the forum.
When they decide to come home there'll be an "escalated threat domestically".
"That places us in even more dangerous footing than we have been in the past," he said.
Police must be prepared for lone wolf attacks as well as much larger coordinated threats, the chief commissioner told delegates, including law-enforcement experts from the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Belgium and the FBI.
Mr Ashton said Victoria Police isn't just facing threats from religious extremists with risks associated with other groups that are cropping up just as significant, he said.
Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton told reporters the closed forum would help Australian police better "prevent, disrupt and respond" to terrorism.
"We see the opportunities that we can learn from overseas to be really significant for us - and we know Australia really is in a position where we're five years behind (in terms of incidents)," Mr Patton told reporters.
He hopes Australian authorities can learn from overseas attacks "without having to go through some of that pain".
The forum will hear from a deputy commander of France's RAID unit about the police response to the November 2015 attacks in Paris which killed 130 people in a series of coordinated mass shootings and suicide bombings.
Mr Patton separately confirmed Victoria Police would provide information on Australia's most wanted terrorist, Neil Prakash, to federal authorities who are seeking to extradite him from Turkey.
Share
