The Islamic State’s Global Terrorism Campaign and the Bondi Hanukkah Massacre
The main editorial of Al-Naba 526
In the 526th edition of Al-Naba, the weekly newsletter of the Islamic State (IS), released on 18 December 2025, the main editorial was devoted to the Hanukkah Massacre the jihadists carried out in Australia on 14 December.
A translation of the whole editorial is given below, but some key points are worth underlining.
First, building on previous recent explanations of its global attacks, IS in Al-Naba 526 implicitly argued that its model at the present time is somewhat looser than it was at the height of the caliphate-era terrorism, where guides from its intelligence apparatus intimately oversaw atrocities from North America to the Subcontinent. IS boasts that its ideology is what binds its loyalists around the world now and this renders the West’s technological capabilities powerless to stop it. However, IS simultaneously acknowledges that it continues to convey “orders via cyberspace” to operatives such as the murderers on Bondi Beach two weeks ago.
Second, in terms of how IS treats attacks by its loyalists, it is confessed that the group chooses whether to officially claim them, implicitly praise them, or deliberately keep silent if that will be more politically or otherwise advantageous in confusing and destabilising its enemies. In other words, the lack of an official statement acknowledging an IS attack tells us very little about the extent of their involvement, which can range from simply approving a plan brought to them by a lone actor up to selecting the date and target(s), or even supplying training and resources.
Third, so to speak from the other direction, IS reminds its loyalists that carrying out “blessed attacks” against infidels is more important than filming them or otherwise documenting them for use by IS’s propaganda apparatus. Likewise, Al-Naba says there is no need to leave a “memento” at the scene of the crime testifying to IS’s responsibility, though the group is, of course, pleased if—as in the case of the Bondi killers—its loyalists arrive with an IS flag in the window of their car.1
Fourth, while IS is wholly committed to a global war against Jews as Jews—as a religious enemy—it continues to regard the position of other Muslims and Islamists on this issue with utter contempt, seeing them as being theologically misled by political views over Israel generally and the anti-HAMAS war specifically. That so many Muslims will rally around any individual or group who attacks Jews, without insisting that this is part of a broader Islamic campaign against all non-believers, is condemned by IS as a “nationalist pathology”. Since IS regards popular opinion as wrong by definition—“most people hate the truth”, says Al-Naba, which singles out for opprobrium those who spread conspiracy theories blaming Jews for attacking themselves at Bondi—there is no surprise that actors playing to this “mob” go astray, but there is undiluted rage expressed for those playing this populist game, especially when they have “dressed” their program in Islamist garb.
The editorial concludes with two tangential points: an incitement to Muslim refugees in Belgium to attack Jews and Christians, particularly in this holiday season that IS has in the last few years made a special target of terrorism, and commentary on Syria, where IS killed two U.S. soldiers, Sgt. Edgar Tovar and Sgt. William Howard, on 13 December. IS does not really gloat about this ‘success’ against the “Pentagon soldiers”. Instead, Al-Naba draws attention to the Americans being killed alongside soldiers of the Syrian Islamist government, which is headed by an IS renegade, and asks what more proof “waverers” need that the man is a traitor and a sell-out to the jihadist cause. The attempt is clearly to sow dissention within the Syrian State, such as it is, by appealing to those who took up arms for the sake of a jihadist emirate and are now being asked to serve as security forces for a government that seeks Western approval.
The Pride of Sydney
No operation of the Islamic State’s in the very heart of the lands of unbelief has ever been spared doubt and accusations of treachery, whether the Islamic State has officially adopted it, commended it implicitly, or deliberately kept silent about it and left the enemy perplexed and hesitant; whether the attackers received its direction and support or were the fruit of its incitement and ideology;2 and whether it targeted the apostates or the Crusaders or even the accursed Jews. All your feats of heroism, O ghuraba,3 will never please the rabble and the mob.4
One of the claims made about these cross-border attacks [by the Islamic State] is that they do not target Jews. So when the massacre of the Jews in Australia took place at the hands of the unique duo, they escalated their attacks, depravity, and accusations of treachery. Indeed, they even praised a traitor who blocked the path of the lions in order to protect Jewish blood, an irony that is not strange, at least to us, because we know with certainty that the walls of the Jews fill the horizons, and that the Muslims cannot dream of defeating the Jews before bringing down these walls. Of course, we do not mean the man-made [physical] walls, for those are insignificant.
