Home Affairs Minister Warns Radicalised Teens Are Turning Aussie Schoolyards Into Recruitment Centres

There are rising concerns that Aussie school playgrounds are being turned into terrorism recruitment centres.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has warned teenagers are showing other vulnerable students’ graphic videos in the playground in a bid by Islamic State followers to radicalise isolated kids.

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Ms O’Neil will deliver a speech on Thursday to the Australia-New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee youth summit warning of a local threat that is “harder to detect” and “faster to mobilise,” according to News Corp.

“We are facing a threat that is harder to detect, faster to mobilise but no less terrifying when executed: A 15-year-old sitting in their bedroom, probably home schooled during Covid, radicalising themselves and then suddenly picking up a knife and going out onto the street to harm someone,” she is expected to say.

With minors representing more than half of ASIO's highest priority subjects last year, the Home Affairs Minister is expected to call for educators, health professionals and other more to come bring together their expertise to “foresee disturbing trends and fix them” before violence occurs.

New Corp reports that Ms O'Neil will also share frightening details about a recent case involving a cell of teenagers radicalising other kids in the playground, using techniques associated with sex offenders.

“The people involved were religiously motivated extremists – supporters of Islamic State,” Ms O’Neil is expected to say.

“Focusing on the most vulnerable children in the playground – loners, victims of bullies, kids having trouble fitting in – they at first deployed those age-old tactics of flattery and friendship.

“That soon morphed into manipulation and coercion as they sought to desensitise their victims by showing increasingly graphic and violent Islamic State propaganda. Eventually, they were sharing beheading videos,” she is purported to say.

The Home Affairs Minister will also emphasis Australia's need to improve social cohesion in order to prevent the “seeding of extremist ideas”.

“Terrorism doesn’t stand still, and neither should we.”

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