"It's a troubled community as a group," said Greg Barton, director of the Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University. "So they're over-represented in petty crime, in organized crime, in religious extremism." When the civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, the fighting was a draw for many Lebanese Muslim families in Australia. Clannishness and old family networks made it easy for youngsters from the community to slip away and join the fighting.