Australia’s intelligence boss, Mike Burgess, wants the country’s terrorist alert system upgraded.
He made the argument in June, stating that “I do not believe the system was designed for a situation like the one we now face.”
While Australia’s terrorism threat level remains at PROBABLE, he said, it doesn’t tell the full story.
“The next level on the scale is EXPECTED, which applies when we have intelligence about a specific attack.”
About which, he clarified, “we do not.”
However, Burgess stated, “we do know the environment is degrading, and acts of politically motivated violence are becoming more likely.”
Referring to “extremists across the ideological spectrum”, he cited one case involving so-called “extreme Christian beliefs,” and another “allegedly inspired by an extreme left-wing ideology.”
Although the majority of terrorism threats still involve Islamists, he said, “these cases demonstrate the diversity and complexity of the contemporary terrorism environment.”
Likening the state of the security environment to “climate change”, Burgess asserted,
“Just as climate change increases the likelihood of extreme weather but does not forecast specific storms, politically motivated violence, including acts of terrorism, is more likely, even though [ASIO] cannot predict a specific attack.”
He then added that “this is where a degrading security environment intersects with a diverse one.”
From there, Burgess gave a positive nod to the Albanese Government’s “recent investment in the ASIO and AFP counter-terrorism online centre.”
He said, ASIO and the AFP have foiled 31 major plots since 2014, then reassured Australians that they don’t want to be “all-seeing and all-knowing.”
That said, his agency will confront this “new terrorism environment” head-on.
Inferring multicultural – “modern” - Australia, he said that the country’s dynamic, diverse, and degraded security is an “unfortunate reality,” then added that “the terror alert system will never include a level of “impossible” or “unthinkable”.
Hence the importance, Burgess said, of addressing “known serious threats, and continually evolving and improving [ASIO’s] capabilities.”
This includes the “aggressive adoption of new tools and techniques”, like artificial intelligence.
Listed among his “that’s terrorism” concerns were “the tolerance of intolerance, the growth of grievance, the radicalisation of minors, the embrace of conspiracy.”
His June address ended by endorsing a return to the ethos of a “fair-go.”
Burgess stated that with a revival of “mutual respect and tolerance, the temperature of our security environment would be several degrees lower.
“By all means disagree,” he declared, “but consider how we disagree.
“By all means protest, but consider how we protest.
“By all means report the news, but consider how you report the news.
“By all means condemn a government or a political party, but consider whether you should condemn a people.”
Doubling down on his assertions, Burgess noted on 11 September this year, “much has changed since 9/11.”
“Terrorist motivations are far more diverse than they were 25 years ago.”
Although Burgess noted that “Sunni violent extremism still represents the majority of ASIO’s counter-terrorism caseload,” he reasserted the June diversity claim.
Contemporary terrorism, the ASIO boss declared, now involves “mixed ideologies.”
“Drivers of extremism,” he added, “are [also] different and more diverse.”
The internet, for example, when “violent rhetoric and violent acts are left unchecked,” “creates a permissive environment for further violence.”
While mostly benign, the ASIO chief’s comments raise some red flags.
Without scrutiny, updating the terror alert system could lead to ASIO policing dissent, political commentary and Christian sermons calling the government to account.
Such is Labor and the eSafety’s apparent lust for a dystopian ministry of truth, circa “Digital Duty of Care.”
Hand-in-hand with Burgess’ updates, this could also lead to Australia’s security agencies expanding who they designate as a terrorist and what they consider to be terrorism.
In the hands of a socialist government, which hates criticism, especially when political opponents overtake them in the polls, Burgess’ promises about any ASIO overreach are far from reassuring.
Any push to further supercharge the surveillance state is a chilling prospect for a nation founded on faith, family and freedom.
One clear takeaway from Burgess’ two addresses this year is that diversity isn’t just a threat to social cohesion.
ASIO now seems to consider it a threat to national security.
A Florida fishing charter boat made a very unusual catch Saturday while operating near Eglin Air Force Base. Located in the western end of the Florida Panhandle, Eglin is home of the U.S. Air Force weapons test wing. Hot Spots Charters pulled a delta-wing aerial drone out of the water during an excursion, according to local charter captain Charlie Green. The recovered drone closely resembles a clone of the Iranian Shahed-136 one-way attack weapon, specifically the U.S. military’s Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) that took center stage during its first combat use in Operation Epic Fury. The target version of that drone is built by SpecktreWorks and is designated the FLM-136. It was originally designed for mimicking one-way attack munitions, specifically the Shahed-136, which it was reverse engineered from, for testing and training before it was weaponized into LUCAS.
An Eglin AFB spokesperson told us the installation recently lost a drone, but would not confirm it was the same one found by Hot Spots Charters.
“I can confirm that we were doing a test and the test article went down,” the spokesperson told us, declining to provide further details about what kind of drone, when it was lost or the location it went down. They referred us to the Pentagon, which could not immediately provide any additional details.
“The drone was found by local charter Capt. Daniel Arsenault with Hot Spots Charters,” said Green, who is also an aviation photographer whose work can be found at Aquatic Charlie on social media. “He saw the object at a distance and went over to check it out. When he did, he pulled a good size mahi-mahi out from underneath it, complementing his already stocked cooler full of fish from that morning charter. His passengers helped him haul it aboard.”
“Arsenault and his charter company did all the due diligence possible to notify local agencies of the recovery- and was eventually collected by one of them,” Green added. He did not know which agency.
Images taken of the drone shared with us by Green show that it did not have the engine, propeller or the nose cone/seeker intact. Losing these kind of components is common for impacts into water.
While the Eglin spokesperson offered scant details, the host unit at the installation is the 96th Test Wing, which is the “test and evaluation center for Air Force air-delivered weapons, navigation and guidance systems, command and control systems, and Air Force Special Operations Command systems,” according to the wing’s homepage. It oversees the massive Eglin Gulf Test Range, which “provides approximately 120,000 square miles of overwater airspace, covering the eastern third of the Gulf of Mexico from the Florida panhandle to the Florida Keys. The land range covers 724 square miles and contains 70 specific test and training areas, including an approved depleted uranium test range and the only qualified air-to-ground supersonic range east of the Mississippi River.”
As noted in the opening of this article, the LUCAS drone was used for the first time in combat during the opening day of the Operation Epic Fury war on Iran on Feb. 28.
“Costing approximately $35,000 per platform, LUCAS is a low-cost, scalable system that provides cutting-edge capabilities at a fraction of the cost of traditional long-range U.S. systems that can deliver similar effects,” Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a CENTCOM spokesperson, told TWZ when the command stood up Task Force Scorpion Strike (TFSS), the military’s first one-way attack drone unit, back in December. “The drone system has an extensive range and the ability to operate beyond line of sight, providing significant capability across CENTCOM’s vast operating area.”
“LUCAS drones deployed by CENTCOM have an extensive range and are designed to operate autonomously,” CENTCOM added in a press release. “They can be launched with different mechanisms to include catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff, and mobile ground and vehicle systems.”
TFSS falls under the auspices of U.S. Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT), which oversees U.S. special operations activities across the Middle East.
While we aren’t sure if the drone found by Hot Spots Charters is the one lost by Eglin, it wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened in Florida. For example, in 2021, beachcombers in Florida’s Palm Beach County found a U.S. Air Force BQM-167A high-performance target drone that washed ashore.
BREAKING: Military drone washes up on beach at Ocean Ridge Hammock Park https://t.co/JXMYTAdXcP pic.twitter.com/rHW5Dyv94p
— WPTV (@WPTV) March 19, 2021
Indeed, the Air Force has a handful of 120-foot boats, the only vessels in its service, to help recover drones after they are shot down during live-fire exercises, or otherwise need to be recovered from these waters. The boats are operated by a contracted crew from Florida Offshore and retrieve around 100 of the drones each year.
The FLM-136’s origins as a target drone are highly relevant here. Counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) capabilities are being hotly pursued on all fronts across the U.S. military as the threat from them has ballooned. During the war in Ukraine and multiple engagements with Iran, including Operation Epic Fury, one-way attack drones have proven to be a massive threat that is heavily influencing how wars are fought. As far as Eglin AFB goes, maybe the most high-profile C-UAS development as of late that has emerged from there has been arming USAF fighters with FALCO APKWS laser-guided rockets to shoot down exactly the same kind of threat that the FLM-136 is meant to emulate. This program began in 2019, which TWZ was first to report on, but was finally rushed into service years later as the standoff with Iran went hot. Now there are many other programs aimed at dealing with these same threats, including a more capable “fire and forget” air-to-air APKWS.
LUCAS development is continuing at a high-pace, with its ability to swarm cooperatively with other LUCAS drones — a feature we reported as central to the LUCAS vision when the existence of the program was disclosed — being worked on now. You can read more about this here. These systems need sanitized airspace for development activities, and the vast ranges over the gulf are some of the best in the country for it.
So, it’s not surprising to see an FLM-136 floating in the waters off Eglin AFB. Even in the war with Iran, there were multiple losses of LUCAS drones where they were found intact. These weapons are produced to be risked in large numbers, and some failing, for whatever reason, is just part of the calculus.
Locals in Iraq appear to have recovered a crashed and almost entirely intact Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS), an American copy of the Iranian Shahed-136 Attack Drone, which is confirmed to have been used recently by Task Force Scorpion Strike during U.S. attacks on… pic.twitter.com/SEqO6627en
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 2, 2026
We will update this story with any additional details we can find about this drone. Though we don’t yet know for sure where it came from, one thing is for certain, the folks on the Hot Spots Charters boat that found it will always have a good tale about the one that didn’t get away.
UPDATE: 2:38 PM Eastern Sept. 21 –
Eglin Air Force Base provided us with an update.
“On Thursday, Sept. 17, a LUCAS UAS impacted the water during routine scheduled testing on the Eglin AFB Range. The aircraft has been recovered and is back in the Department’s possession.
We do not have any additional details to provide at this time.”
Contact the author: howard@twz.com
The post Shahed-136 Clone Found By Florida Fisherman, Eglin AFB Admits It Lost A Drone (Updated) appeared first on TWZ.
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has gone on record confirming that the US government manufactured the AIDS virus — and then unleashed a deadly “cure” that killed hundreds of thousands. Speaking in an exclusive interview [...]
The post Gen. Mike Flynn Confirms US Gov’t Manufactured AIDS—And the ‘Toxic Cure’ appeared first on The People's Voice.
Dopo la chiusura dei seggi, mentre da tutta la Russia arrivavano i primi risultati degli scrutini, il presidente del partito Yabloko, Nikolaj Rybakov, si è rivolto a quelli...
A União Desportiva de Santarém venceu esta tarde o Merelinense (1.ª Divisão da AF Braga) por 5-0, em jogo a contar para a 2.ª eliminatória da Taça de Portugal. O jogo, disputado no Campo Chã das Padeiras, iniciou-se às 15 horas, numa tarde de intenso calor. Os golos scalabitanos foram apontados por Abderrahmane Soumare (40’), Rodrigo Silva (aos 49’, 66’ e 70’) e Isnaba Graça (89’).
Login