The owner of nine New Zealand shopping malls has been singled out in a threatening video released by an Islamic terrorist group.
Al-Shebab, also called al-Shabaab - a terrorist group based in parts of the fractured, failed state of Somalia - released a video advising its supporters to attack Westfield malls around the world.
The group murdered at least 63 people in a September 2013 attack in the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
In the new video, a suspected al-Shebab operative specifically advocated attacking major shopping centres in countries including Canada and the United States.
Westfield, which was founded in Australia, released a response to the video this afternoon.
Its Australasian arm Scentre Group - which operates 47 Westfield-branded shopping centres on both sides of the Tasman, including nine in New Zealand -said it was taking steps to keep its shopping centres safe.
"There is no evidence of an imminent threat to our shopping centres but as always Scentre Group will take every available step to keep our shopping centres safe for staff, retailers and customers," it said in a statement today.
"Scentre Group's policy is to not publicly discuss security procedures, however our heads of security continue to coordinate their activities with police and government agencies.
"As usual, significant resources continue to be devoted to security arrangements in our offices and shopping centres and they continue to operate as normal."
Several retailers at Westfield malls in central Auckland and Glenfield, on the North Shore, said they had not received any directives from Westfield in response to the video.
"I've heard of that story but I haven't really heard of anything within the Westfield atmosphere here," one Glenfield retailer said. "I've only heard it online."
The US Homeland Security Department said today NZT it was unaware of any specific plot against American shopping malls.
Former Somali cabinet minister Abdisaid Ali alleged in 2008 that New Zealand business were among those funding extremists in Somalia, of which al-Shebab was by far the most prominent group.
In May 2013, Wellington man Adam Deer's account was closed following concerns it was being used to launder money or finance terrorism, Fairfax reported.
Mr Deer, who arrived here from Somalia around late 2009, steadfastly denied any wrongdoing and said the money was being sent to his poor mother and other relatives at risk of starvation.
The Wellington Somali Council could not immediately be reached for comment, but Somalians in New Zealand have previously voiced safety concerns when members of the diaspora here were the subjects of adverse publicity.
The US Department of State has said al-Shebab had stolen money from diaspora donors intended for humanitarian purposes.
The New Zealand Government has designated al-Shebab as a terrorist entity, one of 19 such groups.
The group was linked to al-Qaeda and desired the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state in Somalia, according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a nonprofit think-tank based in Washington DC.
The group withered in recent years after a prolonged African Union campaign but remained a threat to peace in other countries, the think-tank added.
The group exploited Somali nationalist, anti-Ethiopian and anti-Western sentiments to seduce some members of the Somali diaspora into adopting its worldview, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) said in a 2012 study.
"While the threat that al-Shabaab poses to the West can easily be overstated, its outreach to Muslims living in Europe and the United States has been successful relative to other al-Qaeda-linked groups and warrants exploration," the ICSR said.
Al-Shebab enjoyed using Twitter, digital video and alternative media to promote its worldview, and ICSR said the West had been slow to keep tabs on the terrorist outfit's propaganda.
The video release came as Cabinet discussed the expected deployment of New Zealand troops to help the Iraqi government fight the so-called Islamic State.
Prime Minister John Key will make an announcement on the deployment tomorrow.
- By John Weekes of NZME. News Service
