Zaky Mallah says jobless Muslims joining Islamic State

Former terror suspect Zaky Mallah, pictured in 2003.

By Rachel Olding
Friday, February 6, 2015

Unemployment is the biggest threat to radicalisation in Australia, senior Muslim leaders have warned, and bored teens are joining terror group Islamic State simply to have something to do.

Community leaders say they are increasingly coming across disaffected young men who are heading to Syria because IS offers them the job, money and sense of purpose they feel they can't find in Australia.

At a loss after countless job knock-backs, Zaky Mallah, who was acquitted of terrorism charges in 2005, emailed Fairfax Media explaining his desperate situation and saying "might as well bloody join ISIS lol. They have work! And good money!".

The line was a joke, he later said, but it wasn't for others in his situation.

"Put it this way, if a person doesn't have a job in life to keep them occupied then a person will start thinking about silly things and engaging in those silly thoughts. It might be going overseas, it might be joining a military group, it might be becoming a lone wolf," he said.

"They need to find themselves part of something and if they can't find themselves part of a community or a work environment then unfortunately they will go to extreme measures to get what they're crying out for."

Mallah, 31, said he has applied for dozens of jobs, from kitchen hand to pizza delivery driver, and believed his prior conviction was turning employers off.

ASIO deemed him fit to receive his passport back in 2009 and he says he deserves a second chance.

He conceded that his penchant for uploading YouTube rants can be divisive and that much of the Muslim community had shunned him for his loud mouth and regular meetings with counter-terrorism police.

He wanted to start a security company specialising in terrorism monitoring but was refused a security licence because of his criminal record.

"That is why many Muslims in the Islamic community are leaving Australia and heading to Syria... and turn to fighting. What is the point of living here?"

Ahmet Keskin, founder of the Affinity Intercultural Foundation, said his organisation often came across despairing teens saying, "I may as well just join ISIS".

"When you've had knock-back after knock-back and you feel it's because of your name or your background, that can fuel that emotion," he said.

"IS plays on that rhetoric and gives them the opportunity to live out the Hollywood dream where they become a hero."

Islamic Friendship Association founder Keysar Trad has lead calls to direct more funding to job creation for at-risk youth, or face losing more young Australians to the IS narrative.

"The biggest battle for the hearts and minds of young people is won by those who can show them there's a place that they can belong, that they can make some sort of impact on the world," he said.

"We need jobs desperately, it's the first thing missing in their lives. Once we've got that, I think all these other external influences will start to diminish."

His comments were reflected by a magistrate in the Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday who found that teenage terror suspect Ahmad Saiyer Naizmand fled Australia for the Middle East last year because he was "somewhat at a loss" after losing his job as a courier.

Naizmand, whose passport was confiscated by ASIO in 2013, felt lost and useless, sparking a "hare-brained idea" to leave Australia on his brother's passport when he was 19, his lawyer said.

Several Australians who have left for Syria are believed to have been partially motivated by continual joblessness.

Wanted jihadist Khaled Sharrouf struggled to find work after his release from jail in 2009 and was being pursued for underworld debts when he fled Australia.

The devastated parents of four brothers who escaped Australia to join Islamic State last year believe the catalyst was second eldest son Bilal Elbaf, 25, who had become unemployed and depressed and was spending excessive amounts of time with a mystery person outside the family's Yagoona home.

A spokesman for Attorney-General George Brandis said the government's $13.4 million Countering Violent Extremism initiative would include offering employment services and mentoring to at-risk youth.

The initiative has not yet begun.

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