Australia terror attack exposes ISIS resurgence as experts warn of global jihadist networks

The panic onslaught successful Australia has renewed urgent warnings from quality officials and counterterrorism experts that planetary jihadist networks are intensifying their reach, adjacent arsenic Western governments proceed to framework groups similar ISIS arsenic weakened oregon successful retreat.

Bill Roggio, a elder chap astatine the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and 1 of the longest-running trackers of jihadist movements, said the Australia onslaught highlights a persistent miscalculation successful Western capitals.

"We’ve ever been speedy to state violent organizations defeated and insignificant, and that couldn’t beryllium further from the truth," Roggio told Fox News Digital.

Roggio, who is besides managing exertion of The Long War Journal, said ISIS remains acold from dismantled contempt the illness of its territorial "caliphate."

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People stitchery astir a tribute for shooting victims extracurricular the Bondi Pavilion astatine Sydney's Bondi Beach, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, a time aft a shooting.  (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

"This onslaught successful Australia is implicit impervious that the Islamic State hasn’t been defeated," helium said. "These groups are inactive capable to enlistee and indoctrinate people. They inactive person harmless havens."

He pointed to ISIS’ enduring beingness successful Afghanistan. "I conscionable work the U.N. report. There are 2,000 ISIS fighters there, according to the United Nations," Roggio said. "That’s not what a defeated radical looks like."

Police inspect astatine the country of a shooting astatine Bondi Beach successful Sydney connected December 15, 2025. (DAVID GRAY / AFP via Getty Images)

Israeli officials accidental the menace revealed successful Australia is portion of a broader planetary pattern. Over the past year, they said, plots person been attempted oregon disrupted crossed Europe, North America, and elsewhere — signaling an escalating jihadist resurgence alternatively than isolated bursts of violence.

Corri Zoli, a probe subordinate astatine Syracuse University’s Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute, said Western governments cannot disregard the indicators.

"Governments are connected announcement that determination is simply a steep emergence successful the violent targeting of spiritual minorities, peculiarly those from the Jewish religion assemblage and Israelis worldwide — a inclination quality agencies accidental has accelerated successful the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, which killed much than 1,200 radical successful Israel," Zoli said.

Roggio agrees the Israel–Hamas warfare has supercharged radicalization and emboldened extremists worldwide.

"With Israel’s warfare against Hamas, it’s fixed caller beingness for radical to onslaught Jews worldwide," Roggio said. "It’s a further crushed to radicalize."

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Intelligence officials told Fox News Digital that extremist actors crossed ideological lines are leveraging the struggle to animate supporters, amplify propaganda and warrant attacks successful the West. Terrorist organizations, they said, are adapting rapidly — merging integer incitement with on-the-ground recruitment networks.

"Analysts astatine West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center pass these networks are probing for openings successful Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States, exploiting ideological ecosystems that tin radicalize individuals acold from accepted battlefields," Zoli said.

GLOBAL WAVE OF TERROR PLOTS SPARKS NEW ALARMS OVER THE WEST’S GROWING VULNERABILITY

A masked Islamic State violent poses holding the ISIS emblem successful 2015.  (Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Zoli besides noted that Australian authorities had acknowledged that the attacker’s household had been connected the radar of home intelligence. "The son, Naveed Akram, was known to Australian officials for his extremism since 2019 and his relation with extremist imam Wissam Haddad, a habitual violator of Australia’s radical hatred laws astatine the Al Madina Dawah Centre and a salient fig successful the Street Dawah Movement. Akram besides maintained adjacent ties to Isaac El Matari, who claimed to beryllium an Australian ISIS commandant and is presently serving jailhouse clip for insurgency and firearms offenses," she said.

Roggio rejects the conception that individuals similar Akram should beryllium viewed arsenic "lone wolves."

"I disagree with that full ‘lone wolf’ terminology," helium said, arguing that extremist ecosystems proceed to supply ideological motivation, guidance and validation adjacent erstwhile attackers enactment alone.

A elder quality root enactment it adjacent much starkly: "Today is ISIS, time is Iran."

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ISIS has agelong waged a recruitment and propaganda warfare online. (Reuters)  (Reuters)

Roggio besides stressed that the menace is not confined to ISIS but spans an interconnected web of jihadist actors.

"This isn’t conscionable the Islamic State. It’s al Qaeda," helium said. "We were speedy to state al Qaeda defeated successful Afghanistan. You work the U.N. reports, they’re inactive there. They’re successful furniture with the Taliban." "These groups aren’t defeated," helium added. "They’re conscionable operating differently."

Morgan Murphy, a nationalist information adept and erstwhile Trump White House official, and existent U.S. Senate campaigner successful Alabama, told Fox News Digital that "Because of an unprecedented influx of unvetted, Islamist, fighting-age antheral migrants into some Europe and the United States, the West present faces a menace from within. That interior hazard undermines our planetary enactment and drains resources that should beryllium utilized to support state abroad. This is simply a nationalist information catastrophe created by the shortsighted policies of leaders similar President Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel, who welcomed alleged refugees without considering the semipermanent consequences for Western society."

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A photograph provided by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), showing an ISIS emblem among the belongings of a Hamas terrorist. (Israeli Defense Forces)

Just due to the fact that we privation to state the warfare against panic implicit doesn’t mean it’s over," Roggio said. "We wanted to extremity our engagement successful these wars, but the force gets a vote. That’s what we conscionable saw successful Australia."