The profound impact of personal telecommunication devices on social political communication and mobilization is only hinted upon in this week’s analysis of Liberia (see this WAR) but was much more widely felt during the race riots in Australia , beginning on December 11, 2005. The technology was used in Australia to organize and motivate mobs toward racial violence. The incidents last week sadly echo another recent event: the immigrant violence (Intel Report) in France beginning in late October 2005 (WAR Report). Yet, too much focus on these strategic phenomena obscures perhaps the more pressing tactical concern?the Australian government’s terrorism warning announced that same day, on December 11, 2005 (and echoed by the US State Department a day later (Advisory)), alerting westerners to alarming intelligence regarding the likelihood of attacks in Indonesia and targeting foreigners over the holiday season. Although more Australians are likely to be inconvenienced or even victims of mob violence in the coming weeks, there is far more that authorities can do to prevent and protect society from racial unrest. In contrast, terrorists?especially Jemaah Islamiya (JI) linked to many Indonesian attacks targeting Australians?most often deliberately strike at vulnerabilities.

Despite Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s denials that the riots were linked to the terrorist warning, the association of the two events is endemic in the post-9/11 world in which the majority moderate Muslim Diaspora has been linked to the actions of a few fundamentalist-rejectionist jihadis. The scene of the first night of riots?at Maroubra Beach, which abuts the working class immigrant suburbs outside Sydney?had received increasing complaints during the course of late spring about groups of ethnic Lebanese youth intimidating locals. Revelations that young ethnic Lebanese were suspected in a petty crime attack against two lifeguards was enough, according to Australian authorities, to spark neo-Nazis and white supremacists to launch a series of Short Message Service (SMS) text messages across the community and stir up agitated white mobs into targeting Middle-East-looking people and Muslim buildings on December 11, 2005. Within 24 hours, local Muslims responded in kind with similar text messages, such as: