Terrorism is getting worse with deaths at their highest level in more than five years, as Australia's top spy warns of an increasing risk of sabotage by potential terrorists.
Deaths from terrorism eclipsed 8350 - up 22 per cent - but the number of attacks have fallen, meaning they were more deadly, according to the Global Terrorism Index.
There's been a more than 50 per cent jump in people killed per attack marking the worst rate in almost a decade, it found.
It's also becoming more concentrated, with 10 countries accounting for almost 90 per cent of terrorism-related deaths.
More than three in four terrorism-related deaths in Western democracies were in the United States last year.
The Central Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa has now become the epicentre of terrorism over the Middle East with more than half of deaths.
The was also a "strong link between conflict and terrorism" with over 90 per cent of attacks and 98 per cent of deaths in 2023 occurring in conflict zones.
Spy chief Mike Burgess warned terrorism was still a threat in Australia despite espionage being the biggest security risk.
Terrorists are increasingly looking towards sabotage, the ASIO director-general said.
"Over the last 18 months, we’ve also seen an uptick in the number of nationalist and racist violent extremists advocating sabotage in private conversations, both here and overseas," Mr Burgess said.
This was particularly profound amongst extremists who wanted to trigger a "race war", he said.
"We have seen them endorsing attacks on power networks, electrical substations and railway networks."
Extremist attacks against critical infrastructure in the United States were growing in number, sophistication and impact and proved "a sobering reminder that terrorism remains a threat".
"It’s a real threat, a pervasive threat, even with a lower national threat level," he said.
"While Australia’s terrorist threats have reduced in scale, they have increased in complexity."
A lone wolf actor striking without warning was a major concern, which was what was happening in the US, Mr Burgess said.
ASIO is investigating multiple people who have discussed committing terrorism in Australia, Mr Burgess confirmed.
Sunni violent extremism was the greatest religiously motivated violent extremist threat in Australia but people were not travelling to join terrorist groups in the Middle East like they did with Islamic State, he said.
The security environment was also complicated by ideologically motivated extremists switching between ideologies and merging components from different ones to create new, hybrid beliefs, he added.
"A perverse ‘choose your own adventure’ approach to radicalisation," he said.
