Australia's top counter-terrorism police officer has expressed concern that a rising number of "cleanskin" jihadis who have radicalised rapidly below the radar of police are slipping overseas to fight with extremists.
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Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner for counter-terrorism Neil Gaughan confirmed that extremists were continuing to leave the country, including increasing numbers of women and younger men.
Despite authorities' best efforts, it was impossible to stop them all, he said.
"We are seeing more women go. And we're seeing more people go who are, I suppose, cleanskins, that aren't on anyone's radar. They're self-radicalising and deciding to go overseas.
"We're seeing young boys radicalised really quickly online and just going."
The rapid radicalisation of some young Australians is of particular concern to police and spy agencies because it is coupled with a growing trend towards low-tech, spontaneous attacks, making it harder for authorities to predict where attacks will come from.
Police acknowledged that two men arrested in Sydney last week for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack using a knife or machete were not on their radar before the day they were arrested.
Mr Gaughan said the foreign fighters problem is likely to continue for another decade as jihad supporters continue to slip out of the country and head to the Middle East.
Given the increasing numbers of people involved and the fact that many would be hard to de-radicalise afterwards, the threat would likely last at least another 10 years, he said.
"I can't see a change in the environment for a decade. I just can't see it," Mr Gaughan said.
"We are concerned about the fact that we're still having people travel. We are reaching out to the community to try and stop it … but regardless of what we do, those numbers are going to keep happening."
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is expected to make a major national security statement to Parliament on Monday in which he will outline new measures, including plans to strip dual nationals of their Australian citizenship if they are involved in terrorism.
Attorney-General George Brandis was due to attend a White House summit overnight on countering violent extremism. Ahead of the summit, Senator Brandis signalled that combating online propaganda would be one focus.
"The ISIL death cult delivers up to 100,000 messages a day online. We must identify and facilitate ways to counter this propaganda," he said.
Mr Gaughan said authorities had "almost cut the head off the snake" of the Sydney and Brisbane networks targeted in last September's raids, although there were still "three or four" who were free and causing concern.
"A couple of the leaders are reasonably charismatic and find it pretty easy to recruit others to the group. The group has morphed and changed and moved," he said.
"We'll continue to conduct investigations and do other disruptive activities on the group."
He said the "disruption" approach, where police and intelligence agencies used everything at their disposal, such as applying control orders and laying any charges they could against the suspects, was working.
"Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have done pretty well to keep a lid on it.
"As soon as we get a sniff of attack planning, we go forward. We don't sit back and see how it's going to develop and what the actual threat is because the risk environment has changed … Our strategy has been successful but we'll keep looking at different tactics because these guys will become more attuned to law enforcement methodology and we've got to keep ahead of the game. And that's a real challenge."
