The antisemitic terror attack in Australia has reignited urgent warnings from intelligence officials and counterterrorism experts who say global jihadist networks are expanding their reach, despite years of assurances from Western governments that groups like ISIS are weakened or in retreat.

Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and one of the most prominent long-term analysts of jihadist movements, said the attack underscores a chronic misjudgment in Western policy circles.

“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 also serves as managing editor of The Long War Journal, said the Islamic State remains a potent force even after the collapse of its territorial “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. The violence in Australia, he argued, is evidence that the group’s operational and ideological infrastructure is intact.

“This attack in Australia is absolute proof that the Islamic State hasn’t been defeated,” Roggio said. “These groups are still able to recruit and indoctrinate people. They still have safe havens.”

He pointed to ISIS’s entrenched presence in Afghanistan as an example. “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, meanwhile, have warned that the threat exposed by the Australian attack reflects a broader global pattern rather than an isolated incident. Over the past year, they say, terror plots have been attempted or disrupted across Europe, North America, and elsewhere, signaling an accelerating jihadist resurgence.

Corri Zoli, a research associate at Syracuse University’s Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute, said Western governments can no longer ignore the warning signs.

“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,” Zoli said. Intelligence agencies, she noted, say the trend has intensified since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel that left more than 1,200 people dead.

Roggio agreed, saying the Israel–Hamas war has injected new momentum into extremist radicalization campaigns 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.”

Intelligence officials told Fox News Digital that extremist actors across ideological lines are exploiting the conflict to energize supporters, amplify propaganda, and justify attacks in Western countries. Terror organizations, they said, are increasingly blending digital incitement with real-world 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,” Zoli said, “exploiting ideological ecosystems that can radicalize individuals far from traditional battlefields.”

Zoli also highlighted troubling details acknowledged by Australian authorities, who confirmed that the attacker’s family had been known to domestic intelligence agencies. According to Zoli, the suspect had been flagged as early as 2019 for extremist activity and for associations with radical cleric Wissam Haddad, a repeat violator of Australia’s racial hatred laws and a prominent figure in the Street Dawah Movement. The attacker also maintained ties to Isaac El Matari, who claimed to be an Australian ISIS commander and is currently imprisoned on insurgency and firearms charges.

Roggio rejected the notion that such attackers should be described as “lone wolves,” arguing that the term obscures the broader extremist ecosystems that enable violence.

“I disagree with that whole ‘lone wolf’ terminology,” he said. “These individuals may act alone operationally, but they’re still supported by networks that provide ideological motivation, validation, and guidance.”

“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,” Roggio added. “They’re just operating differently.”

Morgan Murphy, a national security expert and former Trump White House official now running for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, warned that migration policies have compounded the threat.

“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,” Murphy said. “This is a national security disaster created by shortsighted policies that ignored long-term consequences.”

For Roggio, the lesson of Australia is blunt and unavoidable.

“Just because we want to declare the war against terror over doesn’t mean it’s over,” he said. “We wanted to end our involvement in these wars, but the enemy gets a vote. That’s what we just saw in Australia.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)