SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – Terrorism is changing. Terrorism is getting harder to fight. Terrorism is a lot worse.

Those were the widely-held views at a gathering of international counter-terrorism experts in Australia’s largest city last week.

Hundreds of attendees – experts, academics, military and leaders from assorted police and intelligence agencies in Canada, Britain, Australia and the United Kingdom – descended on a conference space here to share key insights and dark warnings about the mutating terror threat.

Terror, and its practitioners, are not what they once were.

Terrorists of the past who rigidly held to a defined ideology – the Red Army Faction or the Weather Underground on the far Left, The Order or the Aryan Nations on the far Right – are less common, now.

Expert says most terror activity is jihadist

Said one expert: “Today, you don’t need any deep understanding of ideology. You can just go and do it.”

These days, the expert said, most terror activity is jihadist. That is, Muslim extremists who advocate, and use, violence against those they hate. Said he: “Seventy per cent of terror in the world is jihadist terror.”

The terrorists’ shared objective is clear, he told the assembled experts, who cannot be identified. “They are seeking to destroy the world. That is their project.”

To recruit, to fundraise, to plan their attacks, it was no surprise to hear that the new terrorists are heavily reliant on the internet. The main culprits online, he said, are myriad social media platforms, ranging from Facebook to TikTok to even LinkedIn.

“Ten or 20 years from now,” he said, “we are all going to be talking about social media companies like we now talk about cigarette companies. They all knew about the threat. And they did nothing.”

The far-Right is not nearly as active as they once were, several experts said. While some of it is happening – AtomWaffen in Canada, Rightist extremists funded by Russia – the Left and jihadists now dominate the terror landscape.

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Dangerous new element increasingly active

Disturbingly, a dangerous new element has also become increasingly active, too: youthful misanthropic nihilists who despise society, women and even themselves. These groups have different names – No Lives Matter (NLM), Maniac Murder Cult, True Crime Community – and they are all seething with hatred.

Said one expert, who tracks these groups: “They hate women. They are disillusioned. They have no purpose in life. They have turned to crime for excitement, and they exist in a toxic online world.”

They can be very young – in some known cases, online gamers as young as eleven years old are being recruited – and they have a shared objective: “They want to bring down society as soon as possible.”

One constituency still reveres Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who slaughtered 13 people at Columbine High School in 1999.

NLM boast they are “sharpening our killing skills.” The Maniac Murder Cult, meanwhile, are actively assisted by Russia and are accelerationists “who are embedded in our society,” said one expert.

‘We are all now incredibly vulnerable’

The 2025 Bondi Beach jihadist terror attack , which happened a short drive from the conference gathering, was referred to again and again in assessments by experts from the FBI, MI5 and Canadian police and intelligence agencies.

Said one non-Australian: “Bondi showed us all the fissures and divisions that went deeper in our society than we thought. Much has changed since 9/11.”

On that, there was wide agreement. So, too, the frequency of terror, and its targets.

“We are a lot busier,” said one. “(And) it is aimed at the Jewish community. It is overwhelming.”

Concluded one expert, speaking for many at the counterterrorism conference:

“Liberal democracy is under sustained attack. And we are all now incredibly vulnerable.”

No one disagreed.

(Kinsella was invited to speak at the conference about the jihadist propaganda effort, detailed in his bestseller, The Hidden Hand)