Despite some very early speculation that the attack targeting Jews in Sydney was the work of Iranian-backed operatives, it quickly became apparent that the attack had an Islamic State-link, at least in the sense that the attackers were supporters of the Islamic State and following its repeated and clear directives to its members and supporters worldwide to target Jews.
For the Islamic State, there is no solution to the Palestine question except through endless jihad against Jews and other “infidels” and “apostates.”
Some were also quick to blame the attacks on the broader pro-Palestine protest and activist movement in the West, but in general this focus strikes me as misplaced. It is certainly true that the attack has exposed the hypocrisy of some who might have initially rationalised the attack as a response to rage about, say, events in Gaza, only to walk back on that once the Islamic State-link became clear. But broadly speaking the Islamic State denounces the protests in the West as ineffective and criticises them and most other supporters of the Palestinian cause as one of ‘national liberation’ for failing to recognise that the real war is a religious one of Muslims vs. Jews. For the Islamic State, there is no solution to the Palestine question except through endless jihad against Jews and other ‘infidels’ and ‘apostates’, with the goal in relation to Israel being to break the ‘wall’ of ‘apostate’ regimes that surround as a stepping stone to the future ‘great war’ with the Jews.
Predictably, the Islamic State’s editorial in this week’s edition of its al-Naba’ newsletter focuses on the Sydney attack with a final sidenote on the Palmyra attack in which a suspected Islamic State supporter killed three Americans. The main points are as follows:
- The widespread condemnation of the attack and praise for the Syrian-born Muslim who risked his life to stop the attack reveal that the Islamic State lives in times where the majority dislike the cause of truth. The Islamic State faces criticism for supposedly not targeting Jews, only to meet criticism when its members and supporters do so. This fits in with the Islamic State’s recognition that its cause is not one that attracts the masses, but is rather one necessarily led by a ‘vanguard’.
- Whatever measures the Jews and Christians take to try to dismantle the Islamic State as an insurgent group are ultimately ineffective at preventing individuals all over the world from being ideologically inspired, especially via the online realm, to implement its directives to fight the Jews and other infidels. It should be noted that the editorial implies that the perpetrators of the attack acted ‘alone’ in the sense that they plotted the attack themselves: they chose the location and occasion and did not necessarily receive a directive from the Islamic State or one of its affiliates, even if they had prior contact with members of the group.
- A particular call for Muslim ‘refugees’ in Belgium to take the opportunity of the holiday season to attack Christians and Jews.
- The Palmyra incident is as clear an indication as one can get about the truth about the new Syrian government and its forces that openly collaborate with the Americans to fight the Islamic State.
Below is the editorial fully translated by me.
The Glorious Deed of Sydney
No operation of the Islamic State in the depth of the disbelievers’ abode has been free from casting of doubts and accusations of betrayal, whether or not the Islamic State officially claims the operation, implicitly praises it or is deliberately silent about it and leaves the enemy confused and hesitant, and whether the attackers receive the Islamic State’s directive and support or are the fruit of its incitement and program, and whether it targets the apostates or Crusaders or even the accursed Jews. For all your heroic acts, oh strangers, will not please the scum and masses.
Despite the fact that circumstances have not yet enabled the Islamic State to engage in the epic battle with the Jews, its soldiers, delegations and supporters have not ceased to plot to strike the Jews in every place.
Among the various criticisms of these transnational attacks is that they do not target the Jews. So when the slaughter of the Jews arose in Australia at the hands of the duo acting alone, they engaged in even more attacks, immoral behaviour and accusations of betrayal, and even praised a traitor who put himself in the lions’ way to defend the Jews’ blood, in a paradox that is not strange- at least for us- because we realise for sure that the Jews’ walls fill the horizons, and the Muslims cannot dream of being victorious over the Jews before bringing down these walls. Naturally, we don’t mean the artificial walls, for these are easy to deal with.
As a side-note to the attack, we address those who measure the truth in terms of fighting the Jews and no-one else, and vouch for individuals and groups on this basis, in a nationalistic passion their hearts have been made to imbibe and which they have clothed— in anger—with a turban and short dress. These people think that by merely attacking the Jews, people will clap for them and be pleased with them and join them. You have a large sample of the scum’s reactions to the glorious deed of Sydney, as people—before the governments—engage in attacks and accusations of betrayal, and weave conspiracy theory threads to the tunes of Hannukah! Most people hate the truth and are averse to it.
Despite the fact that circumstances have not yet enabled the Islamic State to engage in the epic battle with the Jews, its soldiers, delegations and supporters have not ceased to plot to strike the Jews in every place, in a raging unseen war between the Caliphate’s soldiers and global intelligence apparatuses that have been put to service- willingly or unwillingly- to protect the Jews. In this war, a defiant group of its best soldiers have died. You don’t know them and God knows them.
Therefore, proceed, oh mujahid, on your path and do not be preoccupied with these people or pay attention to those people. If you are determined, rely on God, for no one has brought the likes of what you have brought without being opposed. For you are in deceptive years, as your Prophet (SAWS) has told you, whereby the traitor is trusted, and the trusted is deemed the traitor, such that the one who kills the Jews for religious reasons is deemed suspect and rejected, and the wretched guilty one who protects them is deemed a praiseworthy hero who is at the forefront of the screens and receives praises! This is the reality of our Ummah today, and part of the betrayal of the religion, as well as its falsification and whitewashing. So beware, oh preachers.
As for you, oh Crusaders and Jews, look for a structure you pursue, and a leadership you assassinate, and a cell you arrest. Look for a camp or guest house you bomb, and look for sources of financing you dry up and lines of support you cut off, and look and look, but you will only find grief, and you will only find failure. For the jihad has entered more difficult and complicated stages, in which all your skills prove unable to stop it, and perhaps they will be a reason for its enablement!
The mujahid today no longer needs all these preparations and complications that existed in the ‘pre-Islamic State’ stage, and there is no longer a pressing need to bear all those distracting burdens. The matter only requires a mujahid who has imbibed Tawhid and escaped from the net of the groups before the knot of the governments, and has then received ‘jihadist code’ here or there, Arabic or translated into Arabic! And so he has set out like the whirlwind, looking for a Jewish or Crusader target, in which he implements what he has learned on the prophetic methodology.
A strategy of receiving orders via cyberspace in order to implement the divine command to fight the idolaters wherever they are found is a useful strategy that does not require the resources of jihad and overcomes many complications.
The prophetic methodology and no other is the sole guarantee for the continuation of the likes of these lone-wolf attacks, and it is what the Islamic State offers today to its mujahidin spread in the regions of the world, recruiting them on a programmatic basis and mobilising them in terms of morale, and then throwing them into the sea of its enemy, making them bleed and wounding them in an act of killing. And it is no longer possible for the enemy to do anything to get out of this nightmare.
A strategy of receiving orders via cyberspace in order to implement the divine command to fight the idolaters wherever they are found is a useful strategy that does not require the resources of jihad and overcomes many complications, and puts the enemy into an unending conundrum of attrition. The sole solution to confront it is to shut this cyberspace that has become a source of resentment for them.
For so long the Islamic State’s official speeches and writings have continuously incited to target the Jews and Christians during their festivals and gatherings, and have explained practical ways of doing do, and have explained that the attack’s success is to be prioritised over its documentation if it is difficult or impossible to document it, and whether or not the attacker leaves a small reminder at the scene of the attack, the Islamic State is not eager to officially claim all these blessed attacks, particularly when its name is imprinted upon them through its program and the blood of its mujahidin. For who can do what it can do? And who can claim what it can claim in the time of gentleness and supplication?!
Here today are the Jews bleeding in Australia’s streets after the proud ones heeded the call and implemented the directives to target festivals and gatherings, and were equipped with the prophetic methodology, and set out without looking back, and plunged with their faces bare into the Hannukah celebration and rendered it an occasion of mourning. And they did not listen to all the voices of the scum from those who make claims and the masses, who have deemed the Jews’ blood sacrosanct by virtue of the program of weakness and corruption.
In addition to the preceding, we direct the arrows of incitement towards Belgium which is teeming with ‘refugees.’ We say to them: is it not time for you to register your names on the lists of muhajirin and leave behind the pastures of refuge, and then heed the divine commands to fight the Jews and Christians, who are on every street in your midst, with your breaths and their breaths mixing, and your fire and their fire seeing each other! Their synagogues and churches lie before you, so hurry, take the initiative and seize the opportunity, for it is still the holiday season, and the market of paradise is open So let the competitors compete therein.
It is as though the bullets have struck the heart of Jowlani [Ahmed al-Sharaa] and his regime before striking the Pentagon and its soldiers.
From another angle, some of the responses to the ‘Sydney attack’ have exposed the truth about fake sympathy with Gaza, for many of those who lent their sympathies to Gaza were the first to condemn the attack and accuse its perpetrators of betrayal. So for example the revolutionaries who chanted ‘Gaza is a slogan’ in Syria’s streets on the ‘anniversary of their liberation’: soon enough the falsehood of this slogan became clear merely days later in the streets of ‘Sydney’, to the degree that they accused the Jews of organising the attack, for reasons that will shame any reasonable person to merely discuss them.
As for commenting on the killing of the Pentagon’s soldiers in Palmyra, among the dilemmas is clarifying what is clear, and there is nothing clearer than the mixing of the soldiers of the Cross’s blood with the soldiers of the ‘revolution’ as evidence of the truth about these people for the one who only believes in what can be perceived with the senses. So what are the doubters expecting more than this, when they have been preceded by those preceding them, who have made up their minds and attacked the joint forces? It is as though the bullets have struck the heart of Jowlani and his regime before striking the Pentagon and its soldiers, just as happened with the bullets of the heroes of ‘Sydney’ in the hearts of the hypocrites before the Jews themselves. It is as though they are one body or one soul in two bodies. Is there a clarification to be made after this one? ‘Indeed in this is a reminder for the one who has a heart or has lent an ear and is a witness.’
Published originally on December 18, 2025.
