Aaron Teasdale was 47 years old. He had been a supervisor in the Australian Secret Service for nearly twenty years. He started as a state policeman in the New South Wales Police at Yass, a country town on the main highway between Sydney and Melbourne, later transferring to the Australian Federal Police at the nearby national capital, Canberra.
Throughout his career, Aaron had been assigned missions that involved families and children. The Australian Secret Service had been very busy in this area of families because of boat people people arriving on Australia's northern shores for several years.
Most of his assignments were about security threats and falsified stories of refugees from Asia and the Middle East. This latest case however, seemed far more intense. He read through the eleven points of required training for this fourteen year old Sydney boy, Ahreed Hussein al Isfahan.
It was not the first time that Teasdale had seen a child brought into the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation as an operative: through the years several kids had been placed into his files, assisting ASIO with the monitoring of family and extended family members. However, it was most peculiar that a child psychologist was not appointed to oversee the boy's progress.
The eleven points of training had been recently updated - within the last few hours - and Teasdale clicked on the reference icon to compare it with this new case. To his surprise, the PDF file was a breakdown of the eleven known stages of training for a jihadi youth. In other words, an analysis of the radicalisation process of adolescents known to be used by ISIS.
Comparing the two, he could see immediately that the boy's training program was modelled on the known Jihadi method. Trouble was, no one had been appointed to oversee the boy's welfare. Teasdale knew this was illegal.
He sat back in his office chair and nervously rubbed his chin. He knew there was something he should do about this. He knew it was not fair or reasonable to put a fourteen year old boy through this program. Beginning with point one, the list of steps read:
"1/ Sever emotional support system of family, broad community, schooling, and all trust-based support systems: ensure the sense of abandonment emotionally affects the youth."
Teasdale shook his head. This stuff was torture to a kid. There was also a note about the updated training program: it explained that the activation of the Sydney kid was to be accelerated and that it was to follow, as near as possible, the Jihadi method instead of the 'usually time demanding process' used for children who became connected to the Intelligence Organisation.
The officer knew he had to do something about this illegal program, but in the meantime he needed to authorise the requested immediate and urgent transfer of the boy, who currently held no Australian passport. The kid, Ahreed Hussein, had been introduced to his 'new' father but it was, like, an hour ago. The schedule was to have the two operatives on the ground, in Libya, within just 72 hours! I was ludicrous!
The only way the mission was possible was if Teasdale authorised the 'Hughs'. It was a high-speed, low noise helicopter that was capable of night flight, necessary to move the pair to Brisbane within a couple of days for the long, international flight into Athens, Greece. The request was to occupy the Hughs for about 5 days.
While Teasdale quickly realised the Hussein case was extraordinary, it was not necessary for him to bring it to an immediate halt. He had several days, and there was no reason to alert anyone to his objection right now, he thought. Since the Melbourne terror threat on ANZAC Day, several of these peculiar programs had emerged. The officer was weary of getting in the way of Homeland Security.
Instead he would make some administrative diversions appear, such as DNA profiling of the child, facial recognition registration, fingerprinting and so on. These were all absolute requirements of ASIO, and he would simply ensure these procedures were followed. To the letter.
This would, in theory, delay the deployment of this young Hussein, so that Teasdale could make his case for diversion of that deployment. He felt it necessary to review the training program with the overview of a child psychologist.
After all, there would need to be a snapshot of the boy's personality recorded, as required for the debriefing process later when Ahreed came off his first assignment. How do you judge the psychological effects of the assignment without an analysis of what is 'normal' for this particular individual?
It was simply not fair - nor lawful - for the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation to place a young Australian boy under this much duress - no matter how vital the assignment!
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