The new wave of Australian jihadis are teenagers converted through video games and sold on a glamorous offering but with little to no understanding of the philosophy they're signing up to, a counter-terrorism expert says.
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"They, for example, can't tell the difference between the preaching of al-Awlaki and al-Adani. For them, an al-Qaeda preacher and an Islamic State preacher, it's the same," Isaac Kfir said of the foreign fighters who had travelled to the Islamic state.
"ISIL is described ... by one services official as 'jihadi for stupid'. It's the CliffsNotes."
Recruiters now used video games to proselytise and convert, including a version of Grand Theft Auto and a game called Quest for Bush. But the lack of deep commitment and the "impressionable age" of recruits left plenty of room to deradicalise them, he said.
Dr Kfir was giving evidence at a parliamentary inquiry in Canberra into laws that strip Australian citizenship from dual citizens who join terrorist groups.
Dr Kfir worked on Islamic radicalisation with a United Nations counter-terrorism directorate and at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel, and is now at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra.
In an interview after his evidence, he said the teens and young people who had joined since about 2015 were less about the theology and attracted instead because they were angry, disenfranchised or had been groomed. Australia's focus should be on building links between cultures, eliminating racism, recognising that marginalised communities had a serious grievance and improving opportunities.
Dr Kfir said 200 to 220 Australians were believed to have joined Islamic State, with about 100 of them believed dead, and about 40 now back in Australia. That left 80 to 100 still overseas. About 60 to 80 children under 18 were believed to have a claim on Australian citizenship, some born overseas. But precise numbers were unclear.
While only 12 Australians had lost their citizenship under the 2015 laws, he suspected there were more dual citizens among the group, given that many of the Australians who had joined Islamic state were Lebanese or Middle Eastern.
Among them is Neil Prakesh, whose status is now unclear given Fiji refuses to accept him as a citizen.
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Dr Kfir told the inquiry the threat of losing citizenship was not a deterrent. It would not make Australia safer and perhaps even increase the likelihood of an attack on Australians overseas, feeding into the Salafi-jihadi narrative that the West was racist in its treatment of Muslims, and giving people a special status among the extremist groups.
"I fear that, if we have an Australian national that we have rejected and said, 'You cannot come back here,' and they go overseas and they remain committed to the cause, and they now have an added grievance against Australia, that might have much more dire ramifications," he warned.
".... Knowing where violent extremists are will help mitigate the risk; it is much more dangerous having these individuals running around the world disseminating their views."
Bringing accused terrorists back would also allow Australia to gain insight into the workings of Islamic State, to deradicalise and to use former Islamic State fighters to warn others off - as was being done in the United States.
"The money is a major, major problem," Dr Kfir said. "Islamic State is the richest terrorist group in human history. They are estimated to have between $3 and $15 billion. That's an enormous sum of money that they can still use to create a lot of damage for us. With having some of these folks back, we might be able to find out how and where the money is located or how they hid it."
Islamic State propaganda projected an image of utopia, where women could be safe, and where Salafi jihadists were shown sunbathing by the pool or going to gyms.
"If we have these individuals back and they are able to say, "actually, it wasn't like this, it was an absolute horror, we had religious police walking around, women were being beaten, children were being beaten" ... That credibility that these individuals would bring to the counter-narrative aspect will be invaluable," he said.
"I can go and talk to a young 15-year-old and tell them, "oh, I don't think it's wise for you to become a Salafi jihadist", but hearing from somebody who had either been there or who had spent time [saying] 'listen, this is what it feels like to spend 20 years in a federal penitentiary', it sends a much more powerful message."
While data was small, recidivism was low. Since 9/11, the United States had released about 400 convicted terrorists and none had committed an act of the terrorism in the US since.
