Philippines says no evidence of ‘ISIS training hotspot’ after Bondi gunmen’s visit

The Philippines says there is no evidence that the country was being used for terrorist training, a day after it was revealed that the men who committed the terror shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach had spent November on a southern island known for Islamist insurgencies.

President Ferdinand Marcos’s Spokeswoman Claire Castro says at a press briefing that he “strongly rejects the sweeping statement and the misleading characterization of the Philippines as the ISIS training hotspot.”

“No evidence has been presented to support claims that the country was used for terrorist training,” she adds, reading from a National Security Council statement. “There is no validated report or confirmation that individuals involved in the Bondi Beach incident received any form of training in the Philippines.”

On Tuesday, the country’s immigration office confirmed that Sajid Akram and his son Naveed, who killed 15 people and wounded dozens of others at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach, entered the country on November 1 and headed for the southern province of Davao.

The island of Mindanao, where Davao is located, has a long history of Islamist insurgencies against central government rule.

Australian authorities are investigating whether the two men met with extremists during the trip.

The Philippine military, however, says that armed Muslim groups still operating on Mindanao had been largely degraded in the years since the siege of Marawi. The five-month battle for the city that pitted government forces against pro-Islamic State Maute and Abu Sayyaf militants claimed more than 1,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

“We have not recorded any major terrorist operations or training activities… since the beginning of 2024,” Philippine military spokeswoman Colonel Francel Padilla says at a morning press briefing.