OPINION – The unearthing of IRGC’s involvement in Australia’s firebombing incidents in 2025 has subsequently introduced into query – the extent by which abroad terrorist teams and Australian home organized crime are in sinister collaboration. Though the firebombings occurred in 2025, the facilitation of terrorist financing by the efforts of felony proceeds have lengthy been understood. With illicit tobacco being a staple and extremely profitable commodity within the Australian felony underworld, spurred by the nation’s costly excise tax, its profound position in terrorist financing is a urgent challenge for Australia to additional examine, particularly in mild of the IRGC discovery.
From late 2024, Australia skilled a sequence of arson assaults in opposition to Jewish-affiliated enterprises, of which two had been linked to the IRGC by the Australian Safety Intelligence Group (ASIO) in August 2025. The first incident concerned a firebomb assault on the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney in October 2024 coordinated by Sayed Mohammad Moosawi, a former chief of the Nomads motorbike gang. The second incident concerned a firebomb assault on Adass Israel Synagogue in December 2024, which resulted in over $20 million in damages.
In response, ASIO head Mike Burgess pinned the assaults on the IRGC, testifying that the group utilized proxies to operationalize these assaults. Beforehand, the IRGC has been listed as a terrorist entity by different Western states, particularly Canada and america. Whereas the assaults didn’t in the end end in terrorism costs in Australia, the IRGC’s involvement would make clear the looming crime-terror nexus, the symbiotic relationship between terrorism and arranged crime that’s festering within the nation. Understanding this interaction of crime and terror is essential for counterterrorism efforts in Australia to proactively deter the longer term risk of terrorism on their soil.
Lately, the illicit tobacco market has been a rampant challenge in Australia, with an economic system of roughly $10 billion yearly. The market is propagated by the nation’s costly excise tax on tobacco which compels customers to show to unlawful avenues to acquire the commodity, in the end driving the profitable underground market even additional. At A$1.49 per 0.8 gram stick, elevated in September 2025 or A$40, or US$26 for a pack of 20 cigarettes, the costs of tobacco is exorbitant in comparison with different Western nations resembling Canada at an excise obligation fee of CAD$0.19 per stick and an “common” pack costing between CAD$15.36 to $19.75 as of April 2025. Along with an estimated lack of $7 billion in excise income, this illicit market is thought to facilitate terrorist financing operations, being listed as a considerable financier to offshore terrorist teams by the Australia Legal Intelligence Fee (ACIC). In relation to the firebombing assaults, the found crime-terror ties is a warning for Australian stakeholders to handle the nation’s excise tax coverage which might, in flip, strategically cripple terrorist financing.
Additional linkage between illicit tobacco and terrorist financing has been found by Australian authorities. Previous to the 2 firebomb assaults between 2024 and 2025, Australia had already been experiencing an extended string of firebomb assaults, linked to illicit tobacco kingpin, Kazem “Kaz” Hamad. Hamad, who was deported from Australia to Iraq in 2023, was believed to be concerned with 150 arson assaults concentrating on tobacco outlets throughout Melbourne. Notably, he was linked to the arson assault on the Lux nightclub in November 2024 the place perpetrators of the incident drove a blue Volkswagen Golf. In response to a joint report by the Australia Federal Police (AFP), the ASIO, and the Victoria Police, the identical car was allegedly used within the Adass Israel synagogue firebombing and a capturing in Bundoora, each of which occurred on the identical evening. Given this linkage, the IRGC could also be a key benefactor to the Hamad’s prosperous illicit tobacco commerce whereas members of his felony community will commit violence to appease this abroad shopper of theirs. By leveraging these networks, the IRGC can make use of an outsourcing method to inflict harm on adversaries whereas sustaining a guise of believable deniability.
The IRGC’s methodology, which is a type of hybrid, or asymmetrical, warfare, is a staple within the group’s playbook which has been noticed earlier than in its plan to assault targets in Sri Lanka and america in 2024. The IRGC utilized drug trafficker Farhad Shakeri, who held a powerful community of organized criminals in each Sri Lanka and the U.S. Shakeri deliberate to make use of his felony contacts to bomb the Israel consulate in Colombo and Arugam Bay, assassinate Israeli vacationers in each places, and likewise assassinate President Donald Trump in the united statessimultaneously in the course of the first anniversary of Hamas’ 7 October 2023 assault on Israel. Nonetheless, his plans had been later thwarted by regulation enforcement and intelligence communities of each Sri Lanka and the U.S.
Following the invention of the IRGC involvement, the Albanese authorities eliminated the Iranian ambassador from the nation together with the suspension of its embassy in August 2025 whereas lastly itemizing the IRGC as a terrorist entity. Operationally, this new designation could bolster the 5 Eyes’ info sharing with Australia whereas granting the nation a authorized framework to pursue terrorism costs in opposition to IRGC-affiliated exercise. Moreover, Australia has ramped up its regulation enforcement efforts to dismantle the illicit tobacco market. New units of legal guidelines have been carried out in 2025 by Queensland and New South Wales to sort out illicit tobacco operations together with drug busts resembling in Operation Xray Modred which led to the seizure of roughly $53.8 million value of tobacco throughout 17 totally different storage amenities. The operation is thought to be one of many largest busts in Queensland historical past. General, Australia’s stringent measures and due diligence in crippling the illicit tobacco market demonstrates its sturdy dedication to scale back criminality and terrorism alike.
Nonetheless, whereas enforcement efforts are efficient, it’s paramount for Australia to think about coverage modifications to tobacco excise to not solely cut back person dependence on unlawful sources however cull home terrorist financing operations. One coverage possibility that has been mentioned by the nation’s largest tobacco wholesalers was to briefly freeze the rise in tobacco costs. Doing so would create a window for presidency and regulation enforcement to deliberate on viable options whereas stopping the state of affairs from worsening. Discount of excise could result in problems resembling a possible drop in fiscal funds. Nonetheless, given the large lack of income as a result of black market as mentioned, conversion of illegitimate customers to respectable customers because of improved coverage could create fiscal alternatives for the Australian authorities as a substitute.
Furthermore, stopping tobacco use could contribute to the discount of the illicit market which doesn’t require touching excise tax. Via a whole-of-society method resembling anti-tobacco schooling or promotion of wholesome life, Australia could reduce the demand for illegitimate procurement of the product, thus inadvertently mitigating the terrorist financing downside.
Conclusion
The IRGC’s asymmetrical operations within the Australian firebombing incidents emphasize the ever-present want for counterterrorism and nationwide safety stakeholders to make use of criminological views to unravel the crime-terror nexus. It should be understood that terrorism doesn’t start with an assault, however fairly a longtime logistical and monetary basis earlier than that. Given organized crime teams’ huge entry to profitable contraband resembling illicit tobacco within the case of Australia, terrorist organizations will make the most of them for financing alternatives. Given this, proscribing distribution of illicit markets will end in appreciable mileage in counterterrorism efforts. As crime and terror grow to be a conjoined risk, regulation enforcement and nationwide safety efforts should be simply as, if no more, collectivized to counteract them. Australia should not solely depend on home enforcement efforts and overseas coverage choices to cripple the potential of nefarious actors, but additionally curb the demand for the rampant illicit tobacco market by altering to its excise tax insurance policies and discouraging product utilization. By undertaking this, the nation can stay optimistic because it positions itself to strategically combat in opposition to each crime and terrorism.
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