CANBERRA, Australia — Australia on Thursday said it had added the U.S.-based far-right extremist group National Socialist Order and planned to add the entirety of the Palestinian group Hamas to its list of outlawed terrorist organizations as concerns rise about radicalized children.
The National Socialist Order, formerly known as Atomwaffen Division, joins Islamist groups Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and Hurras al-Din in being added to the list, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said.
Hamas’ military wing, Hamas’ Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, has been listed as a terrorist organization since 2003.
The National Socialist Order, which advocates a global ‘œrace war’� and the collapse of democratic societies, joined the list on Thursday, bringing the number of outlawed groups to 28.
The two Islamist groups, both active in the Syrian civil war, will be listed in April.
Andrews had written to state governments to finalize the listing of Hamas as soon as possible.
‘œThe views of Hamas and the violent extremist groups listed today are deeply disturbing, and there is no place in Australia for such views,’� Andrews said.
‘œIt’s vital that our laws target not only terrorist acts and terrorists, but also the organizations that plan, finance and carry out these acts,’� she added.
The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, a national coalition of Australians who support Palestinian rights, disagreed with Hamas’ political wing being designated a terrorist organization.
‘œThe government has failed in its duty of searching for a peaceful solution and has shown it applies one set of rules to Palestine and another to Israel,’� Network President Bishop George Browning said.
Zionist Federation of Australia President Jeremy Leibler said the Hamas listing made clear Australia’s ‘œabsolute rejection of hatred and terrorism.’�
‘œThere is absolutely no doubt that Hamas in its entirety meets the definition of terrorist organization,’� Leibler said in a statement, adding that the decision aligns Australia with the United States, European Union, Britain and Canada.
The National Socialist Order is only the third far-right group to be designated by Australia as a terrorist organization.
The Base, a neo-Nazi white supremacist group formed in the United States in 2018, was listed in December and the British-based Sonnenkrieg Division was listed in August.
Mike Burgess, director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the nation’s main domestic spy agency, said last week that pandemic restrictions in Australia had sent online radicalization ‘œinto overdrive’� in recent years as isolated people spent more time online.
The proportion of new counter-terrorism investigations involving minors had increased from to less than 3% to 15% in only a few years, Burgess said in his annual threat assessment.
At the end of 2021, minors represented more than half of the spy agency’s priority counter-terrorism investigations, he said.