Abbott announces 64 mln dollars for counter-terrorism efforts

Prime Minister Tony Abbott today announced over 64 million dollars package to boost counter- terrorism efforts to help prevent young Australians from being radicalised and joining extremist groups at home and abroad.
The cash is part of a wider 630 million dollars package announced last month to boost counter-terrorism efforts.
Providing details of the package, Abbott announced funding of over 13 million dollars to strengthen community engagement programmes with an emphasis on preventing young Australians from becoming involved with extremist and radicalised groups.
Over six million dollars funding was announced to set up a new Australian Federal Police Community Diversion and Monitoring Team for returning foreign fighters and 32 million dollars for a multi-agency national disruption group to investigate, prosecute and disrupt foreign fighters and their supporters.

Apart from this, over 11 million dollars would be spent on creating Federal Police investigation teams aimed at preventing extremists from leaving Australia to fight for terror outfits.
Noting that the presence of Australian citizens amongst the foreign-fighters has highlighted the need for immediate response, Abbott said there were at least 60 Australians fighting with the Islamic State, also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or ISIL, while another 100 were actively working to support the movement at home.

"Because of the Australians that are involved... What might otherwise be a problem in a far away country is a problem for us," the Prime Minister said.

The "medieval barbarism" of ISIL, said Abbott, "threatens all who don't share its evil brand of violent extremism" and can not be ignored by the Australians anymore.
This investment will help combat home-grown terrorism and deter Australians from joining overseas terrorist activities, Abbott said.
Abbott, however, also took care to emphasise that the new measures were not directed against any particular community or religion, but were directed against terrorism and potential terrorists.