The terror attack in Australia has renewed urgent warnings from intelligence officials and counterterrorism experts that global jihadist networks are expanding their reach, even as Western governments continue to portray groups like ISIS as weakened or in retreat.
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and one of the longest-running trackers of jihadist movements, said the attack in Australia reveals a persistent miscalculation in Western capitals.
Roggio, who is also editor-in-chief of The Long War Journal, said ISIS is far from dismantled despite the collapse of its territorial “caliphate.”
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People gather around a tribute for shooting victims outside the Bondi Pavilion on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Monday, December 15, 2025, a day after a shooting. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)
“This attack in Australia is absolute proof that the Islamic State has not been defeated,” he said. “These groups are still able to recruit and indoctrinate people. They still have safe havens.”
He pointed to the continued presence of ISIS in Afghanistan. ‘I just read the UN report. According to the United Nations, there are two thousand ISIS fighters there,” Roggio said. “This is not what a defeated group looks like.”
Police inspect the scene of a shooting on Sydney’s Bondi Beach on December 15, 2025. (DAVID GRAY/AFP via Getty Images)
Israeli officials say the threat revealed in Australia is part of a broader global pattern. Over the past year, they said, plots have been attempted or disrupted across Europe, North America and elsewhere — signaling an escalating jihadist resurgence rather than isolated outbreaks of violence.
Corri Zoli, a research associate at Syracuse University’s Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute, said Western governments cannot ignore the indicators.
“Governments are aware that there has been a sharp increase in terrorist attacks on religious minorities, especially those of the Jewish faith community and Israelis around the world – a trend that intelligence agencies say has accelerated in the wake of the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, which killed more than 1,200 people in Israel,” Zoli said.
Roggio agrees that the war between Israel and Hamas has fueled radicalization and emboldened extremists worldwide.
“With Israel’s war against Hamas, it has reinvigorated people to attack Jews around the world,” Roggio said. “It is an additional reason to radicalize.”
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“Analysts at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center warn that these networks are looking for openings in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States, exploiting ideological ecosystems that can radicalize individuals far from traditional battlefields,” Zoli said.
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A masked Islamic State terrorist poses with the ISIS flag in 2015. (Photos from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Zoli also noted that Australian authorities had acknowledged that the attacker’s family was on the domestic intelligence radar. Zoli said the son was “known to Australian officials for his extremism since 2019 and his association with extremist Imam Wissam Haddad, a habitual violator of Australia’s racial hatred laws at the Al Madina Dawah Center and a prominent figure in the Street Dawah movement.” [He] also had close ties to Isaac El Matari, who claimed to be an Australian ISIS commander and is currently serving a prison sentence for insurgent and firearms offences,” she said.
Roggio rejects the idea that individuals like them should both be considered “lone wolves.”
“I don’t agree with that whole ‘lone wolf’ terminology,” he said, arguing that extremist ecosystems continue to provide ideological motivation, guidance and validation even as attackers act alone.
A senior intelligence source put it even more starkly: “Today is ISIS, tomorrow is Iran.”
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ISIS has long been waging a recruitment and propaganda war online. (Reuters) (Reuters)
Roggio also emphasized that the threat is not limited to ISIS, but extends across an interconnected web of jihadist actors.
“This isn’t just Islamic State. It’s Al Qaeda,” he said. “We quickly declared that Al Qaeda in Afghanistan has been defeated. If you read the UN reports, they are still there. They are in bed with the Taliban.” “These groups have not been defeated,” he added. “They just operate differently.”
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An Israeli Army (IDF) photo showing an ISIS flag among the belongings of a Hamas terrorist. (Israeli Armed Forces)
Just because we want to declare the war on terror over doesn’t mean it’s over,” Roggio said. “We wanted to end our involvement in these wars, but the enemy is given a voice. That’s what we just saw in Australia.”
