‘Low-cost’ terror: Bondi Beach investigators examine IS group link, Philippines trip

The mass shooting that left 15 dead during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach was “a terrorist attack inspired by (the) Islamic State (group)”, Australia’s federal police commissioner Krissy Barrett said Tuesday. A further 25 were injured in the attack, 10 of whom are still in critical condition.

Read moreSydney attack: Bondi Beach shooting kills 16, gunmen identified as father and son

Police say the two suspects – a 50-year-old man named by local media as Sajid Akram, who was shot dead by police, and his 24-year-old son Naveed, currently in hospital under police guard  – left behind an unspecified number of improvised explosive devices as well as “two homemade” IS group flags. Investigators are also examining the significance of a trip to the Philippines the pair took last month, reportedly travelling to the southern province of Davao on the island of Mindanao.

“The reasons why they went to the Philippines, and the purpose of that, and where they went when they were there, is under investigation at the moment,” New South Wales police commissioner Mal Lanyon told a briefing as media reports suggested the pair had travelled to Davao to undergo jihadist training.

Nest for Islamist insurgents

The southern Philippines province has a long history of Islamist insurgencies and is home to factions of the historically al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) – some of which pledged allegiance to the IS group in 2015 and merged under the Islamic State East Asia (ISEA) banner.

In 2017, the group staged a five-month siege of the city of Marawi before it was eventually defeated by government forces, losing hundreds of fighters in battle.

According to a statement issued by Australia’s National Security department, the group is now believed to have some 200 fighters, most of them local, but also a small number of foreigners.

FRANCE 24’s jihadism expert Wassim Nasr said ISEA remains active but is no way near as powerful as it was back in 2017. He also cautioned against drawing any conclusions about possible ties to the Bondi Beach shooting, noting that the attack has still not been claimed.

“This is not unusual. Sometimes groups claim attacks with a delay, and sometimes they do not claim them at all. It is also possible that this was not carried out by the IS group,” he said.

The low-cost switch

Should investigators establish a link to ISEA, Nasr said this would underscore a change in tactics for the weakened IS group, in which terror attacks are neither planned nor funded by a central command.

“Large, centrally planned attacks like 9/11, the November 13 attacks in Paris and the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow in 2024 are rare exceptions,” said Nasr, adding that the IS group has now shifted to what he called “low-cost” terrorism carried out by locals responding to the group’s ideological incitement.

“This was about opportunity. Groups like the IS group and al Qaeda have called for attacks on Jewish targets wherever possible,” he said. “The target was not Australia itself, but the Jewish community.”

Crucially, he added, such operations require minimal coordination.

“You don’t need many people to carry out this type of attack. It requires very little logistics,” Nasr said, noting that the weapons were likely sourced locally. “Financing becomes almost irrelevant because these operations cost very little and can be self-funded by the perpetrators.”

Cheap – and efficient

Nasr said footage of the younger gunman handling his weapon suggested he had received training of some kind – but not necessarily abroad. “He could also have trained in the Australian desert,” or even taught himself “by using YouTube videos”.

If the pair did indeed travel to the Philippines for training purposes, it would likely have been informal and short-term, conducted in jungle terrain, rather than at military-style training facilities.   

Clarke Jones, an academic at the Australian National University who has worked with jailed extremists in the Philippines, told the Guardian that it is difficult for tourists to train with terrorist groups there because of their geographic isolation and how dangerous it is to travel there.

However, he noted that other private military training – not linked to extremist groups – was available in the Philippines.

What makes “low-cost” attacks particularly dangerous is their efficiency and the difficulty in preventing them, said Nasr, adding: “If (jihadist) fighters from the Philippines had tried to carry out an attack in Australia themselves, they likely would not have succeeded.”