A rise in violent extremism and terrorism is fuelling civil unrest across Europe, the United States and Australia in what has been described as a problem facing governments around the world.
This comes after the horrific attack in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which saw a Sudanese asylum seeker stabbing and attempting to behead a man with a kitchen knife on Monday night. Shocked bystanders rushed to assist after witnessing the alleged attacker slicing at the man's neck while he was pinned to the ground. The attacker has since been charged with attempted murder.
Labor Senator and Intelligence and Security Committee Chair Raff Ciccone told Sky News that such horrific attacks were not unique to Northern Ireland or Australia. Instead, Mr Ciccone said there was a growing number of cases around the world before urging wider society not to “jump to conclusions” about perpetrators.
“We've got to get down and tackle the root causes of why people decide that it's okay to conduct these horrific attacks against one of their own, against other citizens, other people in our society,” he said. “And, you know, it's not just a unique problem in Australia or in Northern Ireland, it's unfortunately we have seen a lot more of these cases around the world.”
The attack in Belfast comes as Naveed Akram, one of the alleged Bondi terrorists, was hit with a series of fresh charges including multiple counts of attempted murder. Mr Ciccone flagged that countering such attacks had cost the Australian taxpayer more than $100 million in the 2026-27 budget.
“Part of the funding mechanisms that the government has undertook in the recent budget was about tackling radicalisation, whether it's through our counter-terrorism and violent extremism strategy,” he said. “(The government is) pouring $106 million into that and funding programmes that help tackle these types of behaviours.”
Mr Ciccone said that one of the priorities was “educating the youth” who were “sadly being captured” by extremist ideologies. “It is a concern and governments around the world are trying to tackle this problem,” he said.
After it emerged that a Sudanese national had attacked a man in Belfast, riots erupted across Northern Ireland. Emergency crews arrived at multiple scenes across the city after homes and vehicles were set alight during the unrest.
Mr Ciccone insisted that people needed to “just step back for a moment” and let law enforcement “do their job”. “People are rightly angry about what has happened, but I think also people need to just step back for a moment, let police do their job, let the authorities do their jobs, we need to understand why is it this individual did what they did,” he said.
“Just because there's a colour of skin does not mean that people should jump to conclusions. Just because the individual is an asylum seeker should also not allow people to jump to conclusions.” Mr Ciccone warned that if people get in law enforcement’s way, there was a risk that such attacks would “repeat”. “If we are going to go around, targeting certain members of our community, like what happened here in Melbourne, in Sydney, against the Jewish community,” he said. “We are going to have a repeat of these events and we just need calm and the Prime Minister in this country has said many times, including the Chief of ASIO, we need national unity, we needed national calm at the moment.”
