Shortly after 6pm local time on Sunday, New South Wales Police received reports that shots had been fired at Bondi Beach, Sydney. What followed has served as a shocking reminder of the threat posed by the terror groups to the west, as one UK intelligence source warns, “The romanticisation of ISIS is once again gaining traction.”
The two gunmen were father and son, Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed, 24. According to local reports Naveed was investigated for ties to an ISIS cell in 2019 but was not deemed a threat. The pair targeted Jewish people attending a Hanukkah event on the beach, 15 people were killed including a child.
The attack came in the wake of multiple terror-related arrests across Europe, and the recent Islamic State-inspired attack on a synagogue in Manchester. Last week, two US soldiers and a US civilian interpreter were killed in Syria by an IS gunman.
Security officials are now warning of a resurgence of ISIS, a “reorganisation” is how one UK intelligence source labelled it,
“We are seeing increased activity online of Islamic State branding and outreach as they experience a new renaissance.” the source said.
People and emergency workers respond to the shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney. (Photo: Mark Baker)The intelligence source added that the groups support is “cyclical in nature” and a new campaign of outreach, looking to influence disgruntled individuals in the UK and US has sought to capitalise on growing dissent over developments in the Middle East.
Warnings of more attacks to come
Islamic terror makes up around three quarters of the workload for UK intelligence and counter terror police. There are currently more than 800 live investigations, involving thousands of “subjects of interest” who are suspected of creating or sharing terrorist material, providing financial support to terrorist groups, or planning terror attacks in the UK or overseas.
While ISIS officially lost control of its physical “caliphate” territory in Iraq and Syria in 2019, its extremist ideology has persisted, spreading across the globe using social media, and finding new footholds in North Africa.
The UK intelligence source said “we need to rethink and relook at Syria” and warned of more potential attacks as the group takes on a “semblance of reorganisation” both in communities and online.
Nicholas Williams, a former senior official at NATO and Ministry of Defence, said lone wolf attacks, driven by online “self-radicalization” on social media, are set to increase in the West.
He told The i Paper: “What is happening in Gaza is one among several geo-political triggers that are currently accelerating this self-radicalisation trend, even if the self-initiating terrorists ultimately pledge allegiance to ISIS or some other cause”.
Williams warns; “This shift to self-radicalized terrorism presents unprecedented challenges for intelligence and law enforcement agencies, as such individuals have no formal ties to known terrorist networks.”
ISIS Watch – a Telegram channel publishing daily updates on banned terrorist content on the social media site – claims to have banned over 15,000 “bots” sympathisising with terrorism over the past month.
A Whitehall counter terrorism source said lone actors, once assumed to have direct links to central terror cells, are now working as “fanboys” for terror organisations, “looking for approval from central command” with acts of violence.
“Lone Actors are assumed to be homogeneous insofar as their links to the so-called central command of a terrorist group,” they said. “In reality the extent of the command and control links present, vary greatly.”
The counter terrorism source added that there has been a “decentralisation and broadening” of Islamist ideology since Hamas’ October 7th attack and Israel’s response in Gaza.
“There has been a change in recent years whereby many individuals feel it less necessary to pledge allegiance to groups or to be seen to act in their name,” aid the source, “This is the shift we are seeing from a Jihadi motivation to an Islamist one.”
The ‘front line is everywhere’
In 2024, the Director General of MI5, Ken McCallum, warned that “straightforward labels like “Islamist terrorism” or “extreme right wing” don’t fully reflect the dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies we see.”
He warned of more “volatile would-be terrorists” with only a “tenuous grasp of the ideologies they profess to follow.”
It comes ahead of the first public speech from new MI6 Chief Blaise Metreweli who is expected to warn that the “front line is everywhere”.
Matthew Dunn, a former MI6 official, told The i Paper that geopolitical events are “stoking the narrative” that enables individuals to “be inspired to become madmen.”
“Most lone wolf terrorists don’t belong to a discernible ‘unit’ or other body that’s on a terror watchlist,” he said. “They’re private citizens who are warped by so-called ‘teachings’ and other button-pressing manipulation.”
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