NT teen allegedly busted with documents glorifying mass school casualties

Police arrest second Top End teenager in ongoing investigation into alleged terrorism offences Police in the Northern Territory have arrested a second teenager as part of an ongoing investigation into "the collection of terrorism-related material and online discussions concerning terrorist acts". In a statement this morning, a Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) spokesperson said documents seized from a Top End home yesterday allegedly identified "a mixed ideological motivation, including glorification of mass casualty attacks at schools". The teenager has been charged with collecting or making documents likely to facilitate terrorist acts and is due to face the NT Youth Justice Court today. It comes after another Top End teenager faced court last week charged with collecting documents likely to facilitate a terrorist act and possessing schematics for 3D-printed guns. Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett said the JCTT investigation, which also involved NT Police and the Australian Security Inteligence Organisation (ASIO), was ongoing and youth radicalisation "may be the greatest challenge" Australia was facing. "When I became commissioner, I promised I would have candid conversations with Australians to inform them about the threats they face and this one is confronting," she said. "In the current climate of fraying social harmony, we are seeing more disengaged, confused, resentful and sometimes violent young people. "It is also coming at a time when many protective factors, such as support like family, sport, school, faith leaders [and] teachers are eroding or are not there at all — these are the reinforcements that cocoon our young people from harm." Commissioner Barrett said often when the AFP charged young people for serious crimes they lacked these supports. "However, that is not always the case, and some young people, impressionable and curious, are just being manipulated, and a lot of the time it's via social media," she said. Commissioner Barrett said many young people sought "answers about contentious or polarising issues" online rather than asking a trusted adult and ended up in violent, racist or misogynist corners of the internet. "If it used to take a village to raise a child, because of advances in technology, it now takes a country to keep them safe," she said. "This is not a problem law enforcement can solve on its own — this requires a whole-of-society effort."