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The father and son accused of carrying out the terrorist attack in Australia’s Bondi Beach spent a month in an “ISIS training hotspot” in the Philippines — returning just weeks before carrying out Sunday’s massacre, according to a new report.
Police have opened a probe as to why Sajid Akram, 50, and his son Naveed, 24, recently traveled to the Southeast Asian country alone without any other family, The Daily Telegraph reported.
“There’s areas down there that are very dangerous… (with) training camps and the like,” one source told the outlet.
“It has become a well trodden path for Islamic State through South East Asia and into the Philippines ever since 2019.”
While Naveed had been under the eye of Australia’s Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) since 2019, he wasn’t deemed “an immediate threat.”
Officials are now investigating whether the Akrams had “self radicalized” or if they were influenced during their trip overseas, according to the Telegraph.
Parts of the Philippines are among the most dangerous terror hotspots in the world, giving the country a ranking of 20 in the Global Terrorism Index.
The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) warned that ISIS has an active branch in the south of the country — where the government has battled Islamist insurgencies for decades.
English (US)