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The terror attack in Australia has renewed urgent warnings from intelligence officials and counterterrorism experts that global jihadist networks are intensifying their reach, even as Western governments continue to frame 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 Australia attack highlights a persistent miscalculation in Western capitals.
“We’ve always been quick to declare terrorist organizations defeated and insignificant, and that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Roggio told Fox News Digital.
Roggio, who is also managing editor of The Long War Journal, said ISIS remains far from dismantled despite the collapse of its territorial “caliphate.”
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“This attack in Australia is absolute proof that the Islamic State hasn’t been defeated,” he said. “These groups are still able to recruit and indoctrinate people. They still have 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.”
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.”
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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