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New Zealand has experienced few terrorist incidents in its short history and the threat is generally regarded as very low. However, the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) has warned against complacency. [1] This article serves as a list and compilation of past acts of terrorism, attempts of terrorism, and other such items pertaining to terrorist activities within New Zealand. Significant acts of terrorism include the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985, an act of state-sponsored terrorism by France, and the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, a far-right attack which resulted in 51 deaths and 40 injuries.
A common definition of terrorism is the "systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective." [2] There is no single definition that commands full international approval, [3] but unlike many other jurisdictions, New Zealand has actually defined terrorism in an Act of Parliament.
The major piece of terrorist-related legislation in New Zealand is the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. [4] The Act was introduced by the Government to strengthen its counter-terrorism powers, in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States. [5] The Terrorism Suppression Act defines terrorism, in New Zealand or elsewhere, as an act that "is carried out for the purpose of advancing an ideological, political, or religious cause" [4] and with the following intention:
Alternatively, instead of the listed outcomes, "it occurs in a situation of armed conflict and is, at the time and in the place that it occurs, in accordance with rules of international law applicable to the conflict". [4]
The Security Intelligence Service (SIS) stated in its 2006 report that "the risk of a terrorist attack on New Zealand or New Zealand interests is low", but also warned against complacency. [1] It has stated that there are individuals in New Zealand linked to international terrorism, although the Green Party and others have dismissed these claims. [6] Once identified as a threat to New Zealand, Ahmed Zaoui became a citizen. [7] In another case, a man named Rayed Mohammed Abdullah Ali was deported from New Zealand after being linked to the hijacker of American Airlines Flight 77 which hit the Pentagon on 11 September 2001. [8]
In response to the Christchurch terrorist attacks of 15 March 2019, the country's threat level was temporarily raised from "low" to "high" and was later lowered to "medium" on 17 April 2019. [9]
Threat level | Description | |
---|---|---|
Negligible | Terrorist attack, or violent criminal behaviour, or violent protest activity is assessed as very unlikely. | |
Very Low | Terrorist attack, etc. is assessed as unlikely. | |
Low | Terrorist attack, etc. is assessed as possible, but is not expected. | |
Medium | Terrorist attack, etc. is assessed as feasible and could well occur. | |
High | Terrorist attack, etc. is assessed as likely. | |
Extreme | Terrorist attack, etc. is expected imminently. |
Most attacks, or attempted acts, of terrorism in New Zealand have been bombings as a form of protest. [11]
On 30 April 1951, during an industrial dispute, a rail bridge three miles from Huntly, on the Glen Afton branch line, was dynamited. [12] [13] [14] Although the morning passenger train ran over the damaged bridge, it did not collapse. [14] After regular railway line patrols were commenced, trains ran normally again the next day. [12] [15] Sidney Holland, the Prime Minister of the time, called it an "infamous act of terrorism". [14] Academic Lance Beath writes that the bombing might not be considered a "terrorist" incident because there was no intent to kill or injure people and the only objective was blocking supplies. [16] Conversely, author Len Richardson accepts the police assessment that the explosion was intended to intimidate open-cast mineworkers. [13]
In 1969–70 there was an alleged attempt to bomb the Waitangi flagpole, although any credible evidence of this occurrence is hard to find. Aside from the alleged flagpole bombing attempts, the intense protests against New Zealand's involvement in the Vietnam War mostly involved throwing red paint (symbolic of blood) and flour. [11]
In 1976 the Hutt Recreation Ground in Lower Hutt hosted the Men's Softball World Championship. The tournament was controversial due to the participation of a team from Apartheid South Africa. Prior to the tournament start, an opponent to South Africa's involvement planted an incendiary bomb in the middle of the ground's softball diamond, which exploded and damaged a 10 metre radius. A caller then rang the Wellington newspaper, The Dominion , and claimed responsibility. [17]
On 18 November 1982, a suicide bomb attack was made against a facility housing the main computer system of the New Zealand Police, Courts, Ministry of Transport and other law enforcement agencies, in Whanganui. The attacker, an anarchist named Neil Roberts, was the only person killed, and the computer system was undamaged. [18] [19]
On 27 March 1984, a suitcase bomb was left in the foyer of the Trades Hall in Wellington. [20] The Trades Hall was the headquarters of a number of trade unions and it is most commonly assumed that unions were the target of the bombing. [11] Ernie Abbott, the building's caretaker, was killed when he attempted to move the suitcase, which is believed to have contained three sticks of gelignite triggered by a mercury switch. To this day, the perpetrator has never been identified. [21] It was revealed in a 2019 episode of Cold Case that police had a prime suspect, a retired marine engineer with explosives expertise and anti-union attitudes; however the evidence was considered circumstantial and insufficient to lay charges. [22]
Before her death in 2016, union leader Helen Kelly (who knew Abbott) said she felt the bombing was a result of the "anti-union hysteria" created under the then government of Robert Muldoon. [23]
On 10 July 1985, the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was sunk by the French foreign intelligence service, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE). Greenpeace had planned to use the Rainbow Warrior as part of protest efforts over French nuclear testing at Moruroa, and DGSE divers sank the vessel by detonating mines against its hull while it was berthed in Auckland. The crew left the ship, but one person, photographer Fernando Pereira, was drowned when he returned to a cabin to retrieve his cameras, just before the vessel sank. [24]
France initially denied responsibility for the attack, but later admitted its role. [24] Two of the French agents involved in the attack were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 10 and 7 years on a military camp in French Polynesia, they were released in less than 2 years. Several others escaped prosecution. [25] French defence minister Charles Hernu eventually resigned over the affair. [24] New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange later referred to the sinking as "a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism." [26] [27]
On 15 March 2019, Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch were attacked by a gunman in the Christchurch mosque shootings. Fifty-one people were killed and forty were injured, [28] making this the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand history. [29] Two improvised explosive devices were found attached to a car and were subsequently disabled. [30] [31] [32] Brenton Tarrant, an Australian, was arrested and charged with murder and engaging in a terrorist act. [33] Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described the shootings as a terrorist attack. [34] The gunman was later sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in August 2020. Ardern implored people not to use the gunman's name, stating “speak the names of those who were lost, rather than the name of the man who took them. He may have sought notoriety, but we in New Zealand will give him nothing. Not even his name.” [35]
On 3 September 2021, Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen acted as a lone wolf using a knife to attack shoppers at a Countdown (now Woolworths) supermarket inside LynnMall, West Auckland. [36] He injured seven people and was being followed by police at the time. He was shot dead by officers at the scene about two minutes after the attack began. According to a statement by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Samsudeen held a violent ideology inspired by the Islamic State. [37]
The principal government agencies responsible for countering the threat of terrorism are the New Zealand Police (who have responsibility for direct action) and the SIS (who have responsibility for providing information on which action can be based). The counter-terrorism capabilities of the Police have been expanded in response to the 11 September attacks in the United States, [38] and counter-terrorism also takes up a significant proportion of the SIS's budget. [1] One observer has argued that New Zealand "already had in place a very comprehensive set of counter-measures" before that point. [39]
Seventeen people were arrested in co-ordinated raids on 15 October 2007 by Police Armed Offenders Squads and Special Tactics Group. Those arrested included environmental activists and Māori separatists, including noted activist Tame Iti, but the raids also included roadblocks in the Urewera area by armed police who searched and questioned everyone who passed through. [40] [41]
After lengthy legal proceedings, none of those arrested were convicted of anything more serious than violation of gun license rules under the Arms Act. Although the search warrants used indicated that terrorism related offences were involved, no charges were laid under the 2002 Terrorism Suppression Act—with the Solicitor-General describing the legislation as "complex and incoherent". [42] Major amendments to the Act were being pushed through Parliament at the time of the raids, as well as legislation creating the charge of "participation in an organised criminal group", justified as necessary to address gang violence, a charge which was unsuccessfully applied to four of those arrested. [43]
In December 2008, Christchurch man Robert Gilchrist was exposed by his activist partner as a police informant, having been paid $600 a week to infiltrate a number of activist and political groups since 1998. [44] Gilchrist was given the codename “Muldoon” by police, and had infiltrated animal rights groups, Greenpeace, Labour, Greens, anti-war groups, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, the Maritime Union, the Council of Trade Unions, and other associations. [44] [45] Gilchrist had been working under the National Security Investigations Team since it was set up in 2004 as part of counter-terror legislation, a joint operation between police, the NZDF, NZSIS and GCSB.
In 2013, Gilchrist sued the police for $550,000 in damages over his time as an informant, including lost wages and damages for distress and humiliation. [44] Gilchrist and police settled in 2015 for an undisclosed amount.
The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) is New Zealand's primary national intelligence agency. It is responsible for providing information and advising on matters including national security and foreign intelligence. It is headquartered in Wellington and overseen by a Director-General, the Minister of New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, and the parliamentary intelligence and security committee; independent oversight is provided by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.
Right-wing terrorism, hard right terrorism, extreme right terrorism or far-right terrorism is terrorism that is motivated by a variety of different right-wing and far-right ideologies. It can be motivated by Ultranationalism, neo-Nazism, anti-communism, neo-fascism, ecofascism, ethnonationalism, religious nationalism, anti-immigration, anti-semitism, anti-government sentiment, patriot movements, sovereign citizen beliefs, and occasionally, it can be motivated by opposition to abortion, and homophobia. Modern right-wing terrorism largely emerged in Western Europe in the 1970s, and after the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it emerged in Eastern Europe and Russia.
New Zealand's intelligence agencies and units have existed, with some interruption, since World War II. At present, New Zealand's intelligence community has approximately 550 employees, and has a combined budget of around NZ$145 million.
Police tactical group (PTG) is the generic term used to refer to highly trained Australian and New Zealand police tactical units that tactically manage and resolve high-risk incidents, including sieges, armed-offender situations and terrorist incidents.
Terrorism in Australia deals with terrorist acts in Australia as well as steps taken by the Australian government to counter the threat of terrorism. In 2004 the Australian government has identified transnational terrorism as also a threat to Australia and to Australian citizens overseas. Australia has experienced acts of modern terrorism since the 1960s, while the federal parliament, since the 1970s, has enacted legislation seeking to target terrorism.
The 2007 New Zealand police raids were a series of armed police raids conducted on 15 and 16 October 2007, in response to alleged paramilitary training camps in the Urewera mountain range near the town of Ruatoki. About 300 police, including members of the Armed Offenders Squad and Special Tactics Group, were involved in the raids, which involved the execution of search warrants at various addresses throughout New Zealand, and the establishment of roadblocks at Ruatoki and Tāneatua. The police seized four guns and 230 rounds of ammunition and arrested eighteen people. According to police, the raids were a culmination of more than a year of surveillance that uncovered and monitored the training camps.
The Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination (ODESC) is a New Zealand government committee which gives the Prime Minister strategic policy advice on security and intelligence matters. Operational security matters are handled by other groups, including the Defence Force, the Ministry of Defence, the Security Intelligence Service, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Police.
The gun laws of New Zealand are contained in the Arms Act 1983 statute, which includes multiple amendments including those that were passed subsequent to the 1990 Aramoana massacre and the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings.
The Special Tactics Group (STG) is the full-time police tactical group of the New Zealand Police. The STG, originally named the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), was established to respond to high-risk situations which are beyond the scope or capacity of everyday policing. STG officers directly support operational police in incidents, such as sieges, with specialist tactical, negotiation, intelligence, and command support services.
The Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 is New Zealand counter-terrorism legislation passed under the Clark-led Labour government. Enacted following the September 11 attacks in the United States, the Act was designed to better address contemporary terrorism issues, both domestically and abroad. Until May 2019, the Act had not been formally used in a prosecution; however there were several failed attempts by the Crown to do so. Many individuals and organisations have however been designated as "Terrorist entities" under the Act's provisions, in line with UN Security Council designations. The Act was amended in 2007. In May 2019, a charge of engaging in a terrorist act was laid against Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque attacks, under section 6A of the Act.
The National Security Investigations Team (NSIT), known as the Special Investigation Group (SIG) prior to 2016, is a New Zealand government group that focuses on threats to national security, formed in response to the September 11 attacks. It is part of the New Zealand Police, with four NSIT teams in regional centres around the country.
The Fourth Reich was a racist skinhead prison gang formed in Paparua Prison in Christchurch in the early 1990s that terrorised communities in Nelson and on the West Coast of the South Island, New Zealand. Largely a stand-over prison gang, the Fourth Reich garnered a reputation for extreme violence, several members having been handed down life sentences. There is little evidence to suggest that the Fourth Reich still exists either in the prison system, or in New Zealand society.
Outlawed terror organisations in New Zealand include the designation of terrorist entities as a measure the New Zealand Government has established under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 (TSA). The list of outlawed organisations aims to contribute to the international campaign against terrorism. The Act provides for a list of terrorist entities to be established and maintained. The New Zealand Police are responsible for coordinating any requests to the Prime Minister for designation as a terrorist entity. Implications for such designation include outlawing the financing of, participation in and recruitment to, terrorist entities. Designation under New Zealand legislation results in the freezing of any assets of terrorist entities; it is a criminal offence to participate in or support the activities of the designated terrorist entity.
Two consecutive mass shootings took place in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. They were committed by a single perpetrator during Friday prayer, first at the Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton, overlooking Hagley Park, at 1:40 p.m., and second, after driving at speed across town, at the Linwood Islamic Centre at 1:52 p.m. Altogether, 51 people were killed and 89 others were injured, including 40 by gunfire.
The Al Noor Mosque is a Sunni mosque in the Christchurch suburb of Riccarton in New Zealand. It was built between 1983 and 1985 by the Muslim Association of Canterbury, an organisation founded in 1977 that also manages the mosque building. It was the primary target of the Christchurch mosque shootings of 15 March 2019.
Atta Mohammed Elayyan was a Jordanian-New Zealand futsal player, coach, businessman, and developer. As a futsal player, Elayyan played on the New Zealand national futsal team and coached for the Christchurch Boys' High School. As a businessman and developer, he founded several businesses including Lazyworm Applications and LWA Solutions. He was murdered in the Christchurch mosque shootings.
Far-right terrorism in Australia refers to far-right-ideologically influenced terrorism on Australian soil. Far-right extremist groups have existed in Australia since the early 20th century, however the intensity of terrorist activities have oscillated until the present time. A surge of neo-Nazism based terrorism occurred in Australia during the 1960s and the 1970s, carried out primarily by members of the Ustaše organisation. However in the 21st century, a rise in jihadism, the White genocide conspiracy theory, and after effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have fuelled far-right terrorism in Australia. Both the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are responsible for responding to far-right terrorist threats in Australia.
On 3 September 2021 at 14:40 NZST, eight people were injured in a mass stabbing at the LynnMall Countdown supermarket in New Lynn, Auckland, New Zealand. The attacker, Ahamed Samsudeen, was being followed by police officers, who intervened during the attack and shot and killed him after he charged the officers. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident was treated as terrorism and was "ISIS-inspired" according to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. It was the second stabbing in less than four months to occur at a Countdown supermarket, the first being in Dunedin, and the first terrorist attack in New Zealand since the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019.
The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Act 2021 is an Act of Parliament in New Zealand which strengthens counter-terrorism laws, including a provision makes the planning of a terrorist attack a criminal offence. It was fast-tracked through Parliament due to the 2021 Auckland supermarket stabbing. The bill was supported by the Labour and National parties but opposed by the ACT, Green, and Māori parties. The bill received royal assent on 4 October 2021.
The Christchurch Masjidain Attack Inquiry is a coronial inquiry by the Coronial Services of New Zealand into the Christchurch mosque shootings which occurred on 15 March 2019. The coronial inquiry was preceded by criminal proceedings and a Royal Commission of Inquiry. The scope stage of the Inquiry was held between 22 and 24 February 2022, which led Coroner Brigitte Windley to identify 12 issues to be examined. The first phase was held between 24 October and 14 December 2023. The first phase examined nine issues including the events of the 15 March, the Police, emergency services, and Christchurch Hospital's response to the attack, whether shooter Brenton Tarrant received help during the attack, and the final movements and circumstances of each of the 51 deceased's deaths, The second phase will examine the Police firearms licensing process, Tarrant's online radicalisation and future responses to violent extremism.
'There is', in the words of Britain's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Carlile of Berrew, 'no single definition of terrorism that commands full international approval'. [...] There are hundreds of definitions of terrorism in use [...].
Following the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the US, New Zealand's Parliament passed the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002.