The war in Iraq gave the al-Qaeda terrorist network recruitment opportunities and may have inspired new followers in Australia of its leader Osama bin Laden, Australia's intelligence chief Dennis Richardson said. ``Iraq has provided al-Qaeda with propaganda and recruitment opportunities,'' Richardson, director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, said yesterday in Sydney, according to a faxed transcript. ``It is possible that some new followers in Australia have been motivated primarily by Iraq.''
Australia sent 2,200 troops to Iraq and some 850 of them are still there. Prime Minister John Howard won an election Oct. 9 with a pledge to keep the troops there ``until the job is done.'' Opposition Labor Party leader Mark Latham vowed to pull the troops out by Christmas if the party won power. Australia was not a "priority target" before the Sept. 11th, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, Richardson said in a speech to the Sydney Institute, a privately funded current affairs forum. Australians have been targeted since then in terrorist attacks including the October 2002 Bali bombings that killed at least 202 people, 88 of them Australian nationals. ``Before Sept. 11th 2001, any attack within Australia would most likely be directed against the United States and/or Israeli interests,'' Richardson said, according to the transcript. ``So far, Iraq has not had a significant impact on the security environment here in Australia.'' |