As Australian authorities try to trace back the Bondi Beach gunmen who killed 15 people on Sunday and uncover their motives, one key focus has emerged. They traveled to the Philippines last month, just before the attack.
Father-son duo Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram traveled to the southern part of the archipelago, which has endured a painful history of Islamic extremism, officials said.
They stayed in this country for nearly a month. Two weeks after their departure, they carried out a massacre on the famous Sydney Beach, targeting Jewish celebrants, making it Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades. A handmade Islamic State flag was later found in their car.
There are still many things that are not clear. Authorities have not provided further details about where they traveled within the Philippines, what they were doing during their trip, and whether their travel was directly related to the attack.
“The reasons why the two went to the Philippines, their purpose and where they went while in the Philippines are currently under investigation,” New South Wales Police said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that the pair did not raise any alarms during their trip.
The son was investigated by Australian domestic security six years ago for close links to the Sydney-based Islamic State (IS) terror group, but was not considered a threat.
However, Australian counter-terrorism officials believe the men received military training while in the Philippines, public broadcaster ABC reported on Tuesday.
And experts told CNN that although terrorism in the Philippines has declined in recent years, many Islamic extremist groups remain active, arming in more remote areas and seeking to train foreign fighters who have flocked to the Southeast Asian country for years.
“Since the days of al-Qaeda, the Philippines has always been considered Asia’s academy of terrorism, as its location and existing extremist organizations provide a suitable environment for training operations,” said Rommel Vanlaoi, director of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Studies.
The Philippine government announced this week that it was in contact with Australian law enforcement.
“We reaffirm our support for efforts to protect communities from intolerance, hatred and violence,” Foreign Affairs Minister Teresa P. Lazaro wrote about X after speaking with Australia’s foreign minister.
Banglaoi said the extremist group has been active in the southern Philippines for decades and was attracting foreigners to join the movement even before the 9/11 attacks in New York.
The Philippine group Abu Sayyaf was an early al-Qaeda ally, but in recent years many extremist groups have more openly pledged allegiance to or aligned themselves with IS, a trend that has been replicated around the world.
Multiple groups have come together under the umbrella term ISEA (Islamic State East Asia). In 2017, Islamic State even released a video urging its fighters to travel to the Philippines rather than Iraq or Syria, according to Australia’s national security agency ASIO.
Most terrorist activity is concentrated on the southern island of Mindanao, which has a Muslim majority, unlike other Catholic countries.
Mindanao has been plagued by unrest and conflict for decades, including clashes between authorities and local separatist movements, and widespread allegations of human rights abuses by all parties.
Greg Barton, head of international Islamic politics at Deakin University, said: “Many people have been left behind and are feeling the pain.” Mindanao’s Muslim minority “has lived in the area for a very long time. Islam came to them before Catholicism came to other parts of the Philippines.”
These activities are not limited to the jungle, but also exist in urban areas.
The coastal city of Davao, which Bondi and others mentioned as their final destination, “has always been the most preferred destination for foreign terrorist fighters,” Banglaoi said. “Rather than a target, Davao City is a gathering place and a hub for planning, financing and logistics arrangements.”
It is not yet clear whether the Akrams traveled outside of Davao.
In 2017, when the Abu Sayyaf and Maute groups (the latter of which had declared allegiance to IS) seized and occupied Marawi, the country’s largest Muslim-majority city, the militants’ public displays of force caught many by surprise.
The violence forced more than 350,000 residents to flee the city and surrounding areas, and the Philippine military liberated the city after months of bloody siege.
There are several reasons why the Philippines, especially Mindanao, has become a hotspot for extremism.
First, Burton said the country has historically “struggling to achieve good governance. We didn’t have democracy until relatively recently… economic growth has not been stable or well-spread.” Compared to neighboring countries such as Malaysia, “Mindanao was a much more primitive and remote area.”
Densely forested mountains and coastal environments allow extremist groups to set up camps, train fighters, and organize supplies in secluded and hard-to-reach locations.
“This is a safe haven for foreign terrorist fighters because they can hide easily, and our law enforcement authorities do not have sufficient capacity to penetrate that terrain,” Van Laoi said.
The country’s borders are porous and, as a major tourist destination, “very tolerant of foreigners”, allowing people to easily move in and out, whether legal or not, he said.
Finally, the fact that there are so many existing extremist organizations that took decades to establish makes the Philippines “the most preferred destination for foreign fighters not only from Asia but from different parts of the world,” he said.
But not everyone can enter militant camps, he added. Foreign fighters seeking training must establish ties to extremist organizations and networks on the ground.
ISEA is “exploiting poor economic and social conditions throughout the Philippines, particularly Central Mindanao, to attract members,” Australia’s national security agency, ASIO, said in a press conference on its website.
Some local recruits join in hopes of improving their economic prospects. Other members also share the group’s ideological goals, including establishing an Islamic State based on Sharia law in the southern Philippines, the report said.
These groups have been involved in various violent attacks over the past few decades.
Abu Sayyaf is particularly notorious for kidnapping foreigners and demanding ransoms. After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Washington worked hard to thwart the group’s activities in cooperation with the Philippine military.
However, the overall number of terrorism incidents in the Philippines has declined since former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is being held at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity over the “war on drugs,” passed a comprehensive anti-terrorism law in 2020.
Previously, only individuals who actually carried out violent terrorist attacks were prosecuted, but the law now allows authorities to also prosecute those who support or promote violent activities or provide extremist organizations with funding, shelter, logistics or other support, Vanlaoi said.
The law has made it extremely difficult for these organizations to receive funding, and many are now “on the run” and “in trouble,” Vanlaoi said.
The government also implemented a multipronged approach to cracking down on extremism, using local governments and organizations to conduct community outreach, and eliminating support for local terrorist groups.
They also negotiated peace deals with a number of extremist groups, agreeing to cease violent activities and transition to civilian life in exchange for greater autonomy and autonomy for Mindanao.
These measures have had a visible effect. In the 2025 Global Terrorism Index, the Philippines ranked 20th out of 79 countries on a measure of the impact of terrorism. In contrast, it was ranked 9th in 2019, before the law took effect.
That doesn’t mean the danger is gone.
Some extremist groups with which peace agreements were signed remain armed, and some rogue elements may still be active. “The threat of terrorism has not gone away as there are still existing armed groups willing to carry out terrorist activities,” Van Laoi said.
