The siege that claimed the lives of two police officers and an innocent bystander has been deemed a “religiously-motivated terrorist attack” by Queensland Police.
Deputy Police Commissioner Tracy Linford said the force combed through 190 statements and the lives of the Train family, with police concluding that the trio subscribed to the “Christian extremist ideology” while also conceding that they radicalised themselves in isolation.
“Nathaniel, Gareth, and Stacey Train acted as an autonomous cell and executed a religiously-motivated terrorist attack,” Linford told reporters on Feb. 16.
“The Train family members subscribe to what we would call a broad Christian fundamentalist belief system known as pre-millennialism—it’s a belief system that comes from Christian theology,” she said.
“Christian extremist ideology has been linked to other attacks around the world, but this is the first time we’ve seen it appear in Australia.”
Linford noted there was a range of factors that contributed to the Trains’ turn to radicalism, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, social disparity and global conflicts.
In particular, she noted the loss of Nathaniel and Stacey’s jobs—as a principal in Walgett primary school in the state of New South Wales and head of curriculum at a school in Tara in Queensland—because they did not get the COVID-19 vaccine led to anti-government sentiment.
“They certainly had their views around anti-vaccination, and as a consequence of that, anti-government,” she said.
She also said that the Trains subscribed to parts of the sovereign citizen movement but, at the same time, could not be classified as falling under this category.
“Whilst the behaviour was similar in some respect to sovereign citizens, we don’t believe this was connected to a sovereign citizen ideology,” she said.
Lyle Shelton, former head of the Australian Christian Lobby and now-upper house candidate for New South Wales, warned against smearing all Christians because of the actions of a few.
“I’m not a ‘pre-millenialist’ but millions of Australian Christian believers are,” he told The Epoch Times in an email. “To link what the police call an ‘autonomous cell’ operating independently of any Christian group to Christianity is quite offensive.”
Police Working With US Authorities
The Deputy Commissioner said police do not believe any other people were locally involved in planning or participating in the attack.“There is absolutely no evidence at this time that there is anyone else in Australia that participated or assisted in this attack,” she said.
But she noted that Australian police were working with the FBI in the United States over individuals—including a U.S. citizen named Don—who were found to have posted videos online before and after the attack referring to the Trains.
Siege in the Outback
At around 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 12, four police officers were called to investigate a routine missing person report for Nathaniel Train at a property on Wains Rd in Wieambilla, near the remote inland Queensland town of Chinchilla.Two young constables, Matthew Arnold, 26, and Rachel McCrow, 29, were hit with a “hail of gunshots” as they jumped a fence to access the house, according to Queensland Police Union President Ian Leavers.
The pair fell, forcing their colleagues to take cover, with one (Keely Brough) fleeing into the bushes around the property and the other (Randall Kirk) towards the squad car.
A neighbour, 58-year-old Alan Dare, was also gunned down and shot in the back after going out to investigate.
A siege later ensued, resulting in the deaths of the three shooters.
Linford said the investigations had led the police to believe the three assailants were very well prepared for attack wearing camouflaged clothing, erected barriers, and preparing a range of weaponry, including six firearms, compound bows and arrows, as well as knives.
We don’t believe this attack was random or spontaneous,” Deputy Police Commissioner Linford said.
“We do believe it was an attack directed at police.
‘Lone Wolf’ Actors Still A Problem
The head of Australia’s domestic spy agency, ASIO, Director-General Mike Burgess, recently said the agency’s caseload was taken up largely by “religiously motivated extremists,” noting that those linked with Sunni Islam were the “principal concern in the terrorism space.”Burgess noted that the biggest threat now was radicalised individuals who would resort to violence with little to no warning.
“They’re acting on their own because something has set them off, including maybe the group they’re in isn’t satisfying their need to do what they believe it is they should do,” he said.
Spy Agency Says Threat Levels Dropping
The announcement comes after Burgess noted that Australia had seen a reduction in the threat levels of violent extremism, which he said had dropped by 20 percent since the federal government and state governments rolled back COVID lockdowns and restrictions.“It is true; there are less people in this country who want to conduct active violence in the name of their cause,” said Mike Burgess, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
“The volatility has reduced. In particular, around COVID. So, there is less angst these days as we’re not subject to mandates,” he told a Senate Estimates hearing.
According to ASIO, right-wing extremism accounted for 50 percent of the agency’s caseload but dropped to 30 percent since lockdowns and mandates eased.
