The recent terror attack in Australia has sparked renewed warnings from intelligence and counterterrorism experts, who argue that global jihadist networks are expanding their influence, despite Western governments often portraying groups like ISIS as weakened or in decline.
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a veteran analyst of jihadist movements, emphasized that the incident in Australia underscores a troubling oversight by Western leaders.
“We are frequently eager to declare terrorist groups as defeated and irrelevant, which is far from accurate,” Roggio explained in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Roggio, who also serves as the managing editor of The Long War Journal, pointed out that ISIS, even after losing its territorial “caliphate,” remains a formidable threat.
An image captures people gathering around a memorial for the victims of the shooting outside the Bondi Pavilion at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Monday, December 15, 2025, a day after the tragic event. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)
“The attack in Australia is clear evidence that the Islamic State has not been vanquished,” Roggio stated. “These groups continue to recruit and indoctrinate individuals, and they maintain safe havens.”
He pointed to ISIS’ enduring presence in Afghanistan. “I just read the U.N. report. There are 2,000 ISIS fighters there, according to the United Nations,” Roggio said. “That’s not what a defeated group looks like.”
Police inspect at the scene of a shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney 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 bursts 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 on notice that there is a steep rise in the terrorist targeting of religious minorities, particularly those from the Jewish faith community and Israelis worldwide — a trend intelligence agencies say has accelerated in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, which killed more than 1,200 people in Israel,” Zoli said.
Roggio agrees the Israel–Hamas war has supercharged radicalization and emboldened extremists worldwide.
“With Israel’s war against Hamas, it’s given new life for people to attack Jews worldwide,” Roggio said. “It’s a further reason to radicalize.”
Intelligence officials told Fox News Digital that extremist actors across ideological lines are leveraging the conflict to inspire supporters, amplify propaganda and justify attacks in the West. Terrorist organizations, they said, are adapting quickly — merging digital incitement with on-the-ground recruitment networks.
“Analysts at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center warn these networks are probing for openings in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States, exploiting ideological ecosystems that can radicalize individuals far from traditional battlefields,” Zoli said.
A masked Islamic State terrorist poses holding the ISIS flag in 2015. (Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Zoli also noted that Australian authorities had acknowledged that the attacker’s family had been on the radar of domestic intelligence. 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 Centre and a prominent figure in the Street Dawah Movement. [He] also maintained close ties to Isaac El Matari, who claimed to be an Australian ISIS commander and is currently serving jail time for insurgency and firearms offenses,” she said.
Roggio rejects the notion that individuals like the two of them should be viewed as “lone wolves.”
“I disagree with that whole ‘lone wolf’ terminology,” he said, arguing that extremist ecosystems continue to provide ideological motivation, guidance and validation even when attackers act alone.
A senior intelligence source put it even more starkly: “Today is ISIS, tomorrow is Iran.”
ISIS has long waged a recruitment and propaganda war online. (Reuters)
Roggio also stressed that the threat is not confined to ISIS but spans an interconnected web of jihadist actors.
“This isn’t just the Islamic State. It’s al Qaeda,” he said. “We were quick to declare al Qaeda defeated in Afghanistan. You read the U.N. reports, they’re still there. They’re in bed with the Taliban.” “These groups aren’t defeated,” he added. “They’re just operating differently.”
Morgan Murphy, a national security expert and former Trump White House official, and current U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama, told Fox News Digital that “Because of an unprecedented influx of unvetted, Islamist, fighting-age male migrants into both Europe and the United States, the West now faces a threat from within. That internal risk undermines our global leadership and drains resources that should be used to defend freedom abroad. This is a national security disaster created by the shortsighted policies of leaders like President Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel, who welcomed so-called refugees without considering the long-term consequences for Western society.”
A photo provided by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), showing an ISIS flag among the belongings of a Hamas terrorist. (Israeli Defense Forces)
“Just because we want to declare the war against terror over doesn’t mean it’s over,” Roggio said. “We wanted to end our involvement in these wars, but the enemy gets a vote. That’s what we just saw in Australia.”
