Australians and former residents living overseas helped Iran orchestrate firebombings targeting Jewish sites in Sydney and Melbourne, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess has revealed.
Mr Burgess said intelligence agencies had established direct links between Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and two offshore figures who directed attacks on Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne.
One of the men, an Australian living in Iran, is a senior agent of the IRGC’s Quds Force, which supports armed and terrorist groups overseas, Mr Burgess said today (Wednesday).
He allegedly directed the October 2024 firebombing of Lewis Continental Kitchen in Bondi, which Mr Burgess described as the first major attack in Australia’s “summer of antisemitism”.
“We know more about him than he realises, including the name of his superior in Iran and the department he works for,” Mr Burgess said.
A former Australian resident living in Iraq allegedly directed the December 2024 firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne.
Mr Burgess said Iran recruited the man through a complex network of Iraqi militia groups and valued his wealth and criminal connections.
After ASIO publicly identified Iran’s involvement and Australian law enforcement agencies applied pressure, the man was imprisoned overseas.
Neither alleged organiser has been named because of continuing investigations and related prosecutions.
“I do worry that one day an Australian will be killed at the hands of a foreign government here in Australia,” Mr Burgess said.
The ASIO chief also warned that foreign governments were increasingly using “coerced repatriation” to force critics and dissidents living in Australia to return to countries where they could face punishment, persecution or prosecution.
At least five regimes were using such tactics against people in Australia, he said.
One country coerced at least eight people to leave Australia and return to their countries of birth in 2023. Five were Australian citizens or permanent residents and three did not return.
Mr Burgess also said the AUKUS partnership, under which Australia plans to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, remained a priority target for foreign intelligence services, including those of some friendly nations.
In one case, a foreign intelligence officer approached an Australian security clearance holder online and paid the person to prepare two reports on Australia’s relations with Pacific nations before seeking information about AUKUS.
“Using professional networking sites to recruit Australians is a low-cost and low-risk vector for foreign intelligence services,” Mr Burgess said.
“They are also using less scalable but more sophisticated techniques to target AUKUS and its associated capabilities, and we expect it will only increase as the project matures and the attack surface expands.”
Mr Burgess said ASIO and law enforcement agencies had disrupted 31 major terrorism plots since 2014.