Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott yesterday conceded that the nation’s border security was not good enough after a second suspected jihadist flew to the Middle East using a brother’s passport.
A 19-year-old Sydney man slipped out of the country using his brother’s passport last week, but was detained on arrival in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and deported, the Daily Telegraph newspaper in Sydney reported.
A notorious terrorist left Sydney in a similar security breach in December last year.
The bungles are embarrassing for Australia which, along with the US, will ask UN member countries next month to cooperate in preventing militants from traveling to Iraq and Syria to fight for the Islamic State group, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Abbott said the 19-year-old, whose has not been publicly named, “did arouse concerns” when he was cleared by immigration officials at Sydney airport. Abbott did not detail those concerns, but said they were confirmed before the plane reached the UAE.
“While this person did get out of Australia, he wasn’t able to make his way to the ISIL battle front, so that’s a little bit better than the previous occasion,” Abbott told reporters.
“But it’s not good enough,” he added.
The government planned to spend an additional A$630 million (US$590 million) on intelligence, law enforcement and border protection agencies over the next four years to enhance security, including a roll out of biometric screening at airports, Abbott said.
Sydney-born convicted terrorist Khaled Sharrouf used the passport of his brother, Mostafa Sharrouf, to leave Australia in December last year to fight with the Islamic State. The Australian government had banned him from leaving the country because of the terrorism threat he posed.
Khaled Sharrouf, 33, has since horrified the world by posting on his Twitter account a photograph of his seven-year-old son clutching the severed head of a Syrian soldier.
US Secretary of State John Kerry this week described the image as “one of the most disturbing, stomach-turning, grotesque photographs ever displayed.”
The latest suspected jihadist appeared in a Sydney court on Wednesday charged with using an Australian passport that was not issued to him, the newspaper said. He did not apply for bail and remains in custody.
Abbott did not say whether he had been on a terrorist watch list that would have prevented him from leaving Australia on his own passport.
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