On March 16 this year, two teenagers on opposite sides of the world began talking to each other using the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
A little over a month later, these online chats had seen both – one from suburban Melbourne, and one from Blackburn, England – in police custody facing charges of planning a terror attack on Anzac Day involving murder, decapitation and suicide.
"Salam alaykum," the alleged conversation began on that Monday morning. "im [sic] the brother from Australia."
The sender, claimed federal agent Denis Scott in the Melbourne Magistrates Court, used the alias Illyas Albani, but was really 18-year-old ethnic Albanian-Australian Sevdet Besim, who was furious at the death last September of his schoolmate, Numan Haider.
More remarkable was who was at the other end. British police allege he was a boy of just 14, slight and isolated at school.
Yet it was this weedy schoolboy on the other side of the world who took the lead in guiding Besim in the alleged plot, according to documents from the British courts, and "incited another person to commit an act of terrorism".
It's an example of what may be an emergent threat in the fight against Islamic State: keyboard warriors. These are largely anonymous supporters of the so-called caliphate and other jihadist groups who, from the comfort of their homes, advocate violence and urge others to carry out terrorist attacks.
While al-Qaeda was a relatively exclusive outfit, protective of its brand and its message, one Australian security official said IS was open to all who subscribed to its millennial ideology.
"Islamic State says, 'If you think you can help, we want you,"' the official said.
Harnessing the power of the internet, IS has given such keyboard warriors "a massive role to play".
In the case of the boy from Britain, police in that country told the court he participated in chatrooms related to extremism and radicalism, but had only done so for a matter of months, and that he lied about both his name and age.
Like many online relationships, things between the boy and Besim got very deep, very quickly, according to statements made by federal agent Scott in the Melbourne court. By the end of their second day of communicating, Besim and the boy were already discussing the targets, location, and method of undertaking the alleged attack.
In the exchanges released publicly, the British schoolboy appears to talk up his own capacity, saying he was planning his own attack, to coincide with Ramadan, 85 days away – something he claimed to be looking forward to after exhausting himself with plotting on behalf of others: "Cant wait till my op [operation]. After hundreds of plans i can plan my own."
But the encrypted exchanges revealed in court were mostly about Besim's planned attack in Melbourne, police say.
On March 23, a week after the alleged conversations began, as the pair discussed the desirability of a beheading, police allege the 14-year-old told Besim that the knife he had procured was "perfect for tearing through throat [sic]".
"Btw dont [sic] underestimate de-capitation bro its hard. U gotta be a lion especially that ur doin it [sic] in public."
Police have hinted in material used in court that Besim's introduction to the English boy was made by someone both trusted and who may have been fighting in Syria or Iraq. Besim came to the conversation having already been "ordered" to carry out an attack, police say.
Even so, it's not clear if Besim had any idea that he was allegedly taking briefings from a child.
The question of whether the English boy was "trolling", or was genuinely inciting an attack, also occurred to the British magistrate, whose question prompted the prosecutor to tell his worship: "This is not a fantasy."
Another case this week raises a similar question. Twitter user Australi Witness is now firmly in the sights of authorities after posting and retweeting comments advocating attacks on the cartoon convention in Garland, Texas.
Fairfax Media understands the Australian Federal Police have been in contact with counterparts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation over the potential role of the anonymous Australian in encouraging the assault by Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi last weekend.
Rita Katz, executive director of the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, said Australi Witness held a "prestige" position in online jihadi circles and was "part of the hard core of a group of individuals who constantly look for targets for other people to attack".
Australi Witness retweeted another Twitter jihadist's call for "brothers in Texas" to go to the cartoon event "with your weapons, bombs or with knifes", as well as another user's demand that "brothers in the US" emulate the assault on the Paris-based magazine Charlie Hebdo. Australi Witness posted information himself about the timing and whereabouts of the event.
While Australi Witness denied to Fairfax Media that he had "explicitly" urged anyone to attack the event, he may well have broken the Abbott government's new law against "advocating terrorism", which – unlike tighter "incitement" laws – would not require prosecutors to prove that Simpson and Soofi acted specifically at Australi Witness's urging.
This law makes even the work of a jihad fantasist or troll online potentially illegal.
Australi Witness describes himself on his Twitter page as "a soldier of IS" and member of the "mujahideen" [holy warriors], and told Fairfax Media "this is a war that will be won through the power of social media".
Rather than having the credibility that comes from fighting in Syria – as is the case with key Australian recruiter Neil Prakash – Australi Witness has built his name through prolific tweeting under the banner of IS – a brand the group is happy to be used as widely as possible.
He said he lived in Perth and concealed his radical views in person – including from his own family.
Andrew Zammit, a leading terrorism expert at Monash University, stresses there are limits to the influence of such anonymous champions of jihad. Fake accounts and anonymity mean that "there's quite a bit of distrust".
"ISIS has used social media extremely well, but the exact relationship between online extremist activity and actual violence is unclear," he said.
"It's still rare for someone to attempt a terrorist attack just from being encouraged by people online. Often they need to have offline contact with like-minded people, which generates greater trust and willingness to act."
Another Monash University terror expert, Greg Barton, agrees that most people who have departed for Syria and Iraq so far have been part of well-established networks of radicalism, based on loosely interlinked organisations. Many trace their views back to a small number of plots, preachers or people of influence (see graphic).
Besim, for example, despite the importance of his online activity, is also alleged to have been associated with well-established radical Melbourne bookshop and prayer room Al Furqan, which has hosted a number of well-known radicals. It shut down shortly after the April 18 police raids.
Evidence from the house of alleged co-conspirator Harun Causevic – who was denied bail on Friday – shows names and phone numbers of three known Syria or Iraq-based IS recruiters.
Barton warns, however, that a number of odd people, who have had no discernable connection to existing networks, have popped up recently as emigres and fighters in Syria and Iraq.
The former playboy doctor Tareq Kamleh, who recently appeared in an IS propaganda video, seemed to have been radicalised during a camping trip in Mackay, north Queensland, with unidentified friends. Barton says this suggests the existence of dark, underground networks that operate out of sight of authorities. He suspects they work in the same interlinked way as those that are better known.
The dark network could be informed by forces not yet traceable.
Key figures
Abdul Nacer Benbrika
The spiritual adviser and leader of a group of young men plotting in Sydney and Melbourne to carry out attacks on the MCG and elsewhere in 2005. The Sydney plotters had gathered explosive material and firearms. Eighteen people were arrested in Victoria and NSW, most of whom were found guilty and jailed. Benbrika was jailed in 2009 for 15 years.
Junaid Thorne
Perth born Aboriginal preacher who first came to attention in 2011 when he was trapped in Saudi Arabia after his brother, Shayden, was arrested for terror offences. Travelling radical preacher now based in Sydney. Passport cancelled in February.
Neil Prakash
Born in Melbourne as a Buddhist with Cambodian-Fijian parents, Prakash converted, radicalised and went to Syria last year. Starred in a recent Islamic State video. Considered a key recruiter and mentor for new members from the West.
Musa Cerantonio
Brought up Italian Catholic in Melbourne's suburbs, then became a televangelist on TV in Egypt. Now considered one of the most important "new spiritual authorities". Caught in the Philippines in 2014 trying to emigrate, now in Australia with passport confiscated.
