As Israel’s unaccountable war in Gaza deepens global outrage and the US shields it diplomatically, extremist violence resurfaces — not in isolation, but as a symptom of unresolved wars and moral Western failures.
Salman Rafi Sheikh
The Attacks
On 14 December 2025, a gun attack at a Hanukkah celebration near Bondi Beach in Sydney left at least 15 civilians dead and dozens wounded. Australian police described the incident as terrorism inspired by ISIS* ideology, noting ISIS* flags found with the suspects and their apparent targeting of the Jewish community. The attack, however motivated and executed, is not an isolated incident. Rather, it is also part of a rising pattern of so-called ISIS*-inspired attacks worldwide, including lone‑actor and small‑cell violence. Reports in the Western media now show that, even without territorial control, ISIS* continues to exploit global tensions — including conflicts like Gaza — to inspire violence across continents.
In parallel, on 13 December 2025, two US soldiers and an American interpreter were killed during a counterterrorism operation in Palmyra, Syria, in what US officials described as an attack by an ISIS*-affiliated gunman. Both events underscore that, far from being a spent force, ISIS*remains capable of lethal violence, including against well‑armed state actors. The question, however, is why ISIS* continues to have this capacity.
The Myth of ISIS’s* Defeat
The Bondi Beach massacre and the ISIS attack on the US military are not anomalies; they are the consequences of unresolved violence, unaccountable wars, and moral compromises
For Western policymakers and media, the end of ISIS’s* territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria (2019) was nothing short of a definitive victory. But Western policy makers were wrong when they thought that defeating a physical territory would also defeat an ideology. In fact, multiple recent reports make this clear. For instance, a 2025 United Nations report warns that ISIS* continues to operate in Iraq and Syria, maintaining up to 3,000 fighters and exploiting instability to rebuild networks and stockpiles of heavy weapons. It also highlights that ISIS‑Khorasan (ISIS‑K)* — the group’s affiliate in Afghanistan — remains a serious security threat in Central Asia.
Similarly, recent US Department of Defence inspector‑general reports confirm that while ISIS* lacks territorial control, it remains active, resilient, and capable of guerrilla tactics. These reports document ISIS’s* ongoing presence in remote areas of Iraq and Syria, its ability to exploit security gaps, and its continued access to financial resources and recruitment channels. A United Nations counter‑terrorism update emphasises that ISIS *continues to demonstrate resilience and adapt its methods, particularly in regions like Syria’s Badia desert, where it can plan operations and exploit weak governance. Finally, a UK House of Commons research briefing estimated that remnants of ISIS* still number in the thousands across Iraq and Syria and are stronger in Syria than in Iraq, creating a risk to the region’s security and stability.
Despite this evidence, official and media narratives in Western capitals often cling to the idea that ISIS* is a spent force. This is partly because territorial conquest was easy to visualise and easy to declare “victory” over, while decentralised insurgency and ideological propagation are far harder to quantify. Worse still, the underlying drivers of this ideology not only remain in place, but the Western powers remain uninterested in defeating these factors.
Imperialism Unbound
That the Bondi Beach attack targeted the Jewish community was not a coincidence. The war in Gaza, with its catastrophic humanitarian toll and perceived international impunity for Israel, has generated global outrage that extremist ideologues exploit. US support for remaking Palestine – and systematically sidestepping the Palestine state—under its own watch is only adding insult to injury.
Why is the US still occupying Syrian oil? US military deployment in Syria and its support for proxy groups is an example that perfectly shows raw imperial extraction from a territory—or a colony—under US physical occupation. The problem, therefore, is not whether organisations like ISIS* can be defeated; the question is whether Western policymakers can target the underlying conditions—genocide in Gaza and US military occupation of territories—to permanently kill extremism? Needless to say, targeting the underlying drivers requires paying a geopolitical cost. This policy asks, if we were to think in terms of the two most recent ISIS* attacks, does it involve Washington stopping Israel’s war? But the cost will be its alliance with Jerusalem and its footprint in the Middle East. The US has used this war to renegotiate—and expand—its military ties with the region, thus profiting from the genocide! If Washington were to withdraw from Syria, the cost would be decreasing its military footprint in the region and losing access to Syrian oil. If the past is any guide, Washington is not willing to pay these costs.
Can extremism be controlled when power is selectively applied?
Thus, the Bondi Beach massacre and the ISIS*attack on the US military are not anomalies; they are the consequences of unresolved violence, unaccountable wars, and moral compromises. The future of global extremism will be shaped less by battlefield victories than by political courage, i.e., the willingness of Western powers to confront uncomfortable truths, bear geopolitical costs, and address structural injustices that fuel radicalisation. If Washington continues to prioritise strategic alliances and resource access over human security and legal accountability, the world can expect more Bondi Beaches, more attacks on the US and Western military forces and outposts across the globe, and more ISIS*-inspired violence. In other words, until the moral calculus of power changes, “defeat” will remain a convenient fiction, and the spectre of extremism will persist as a global, self-perpetuating threat.
*- Terrorist organisations banned in Russia
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
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