ASIO: Mike Burgess warns of Russian influencers and foreign assassination plots in Australia

The country’s spy boss has warned at least three countries are “willing and capable” to order assassination hits on Australian soil, possibly by using criminals for hire as Iran did to direct recent arson attacks here.

In a wide-ranging speech ASIO director-general Mike Burgess has for the first time detailed the agency’s international activities, including a recent operation where an officer disrupted a foreign intelligence plot to steal AUKUS and critical minerals secrets.

Addressing the Lowy institute in Sydney on Tuesday night, Mr Burgess also revealed investigations are underway into acts of foreign interference that involve Moscow-controlled influencers in Australia who promote divisive messages on social media.

“These state-sanctioned trolls are more than propaganda puppets; they want to turn hot-button issues into burning issues, tipping disagreement into division and division into violence.”

ASIO will ask law enforcement partners to determine if any Australian laws are being broken by the “unacceptable” behaviour which involves an offshore media organisation “that almost certainly receives direction from Russian intelligence.”

Mr Burgess says although the efforts are achieving “limited traction” he fears the “authoritarian tactics” of overseas regimes are increasingly reckless and could lead to more severe consequences.

Citing the “degrading trajectory of our security environment”, ASIO has assessed there is now a “realistic possibility a foreign government will attempt to assassinate a perceived dissident in Australia.”

“This threat is real. We believe there are at least three nations willing and capable of conducting lethal targeting here. It is entirely possible the regimes would try to hide their involvement by hiring criminal cut outs,” Mr Burgess warned.

Outlining the extent of the domestic spy agency’s overseas work, the Director General has revealed his organisation has “offices in multiple countries” and “officers routinely conduct operations offshore to defence Australia’s interests”.

In one recent case ASIO uncovered an attempt by a foreign intelligence service to cultivate and recruit several Australians to betray their country by gathering “inside information” including on the economy, critical minerals and AUKUS.

The foreign spies arranged for an Australian to travel by plane and then boat to a third country for a face-to-face meeting to hand over a list of their intelligence requirements but were instead met by an ASIO officer who bluntly warned them to back off.

“We told them Australians were off limits. We warned them we would disrupt their operations whenever and wherever we chose. And we sent our regards to the head of their service,” Mr Burgess boasted.

The ASIO boss says that while nationalist and racist violent extremists still make most investigations into ideologically motivated extremism, events in the Middle East are also triggering a “troubling increase in anarchist and revolutionary extremism.”

“While an entity such as Hizb ut Tahrir is religiously motivated, its provocative behaviour, offensive rhetoric and insidious strategy are very similar to the tactics of the National Socialist Network.”

“The organisation’s condemnation of Israel and Jews attracts media attention and aids recruitment, but it deliberately stops short of promoting onshore acts of politically motivated violence,” Mr Burgess said.

While concluding his address, the ASIO boss declared that despite the scale of security challenges facing Australia the country was better placed than many other Western democracies to meet them.

“Every one of the plots I described tonight was stopped, disrupted or pieced together by ASIO and our partners. We do not need to be security alarmed, but we do need to be security aware – security sensible – and consider the consequences of our words and actions.”