ABC Investigation Finds Multiple Gay and Bisexual Teenagers In Sydney Have Been Bashed In Terrorist Inspired Attacks

A two-year ABC investigation into the reawakening of the IS terrorist network has found confronting evidence of a spree of young gay and bisexual men in Sydney being lured via dating apps and viciously bashed, with cases stretching back to 2023.

The ABC investigation has obtained videos and victims’ accounts of IS sympathisers hunting and bashing gay and bisexual boys on camera in Sydney. The videos are full of distressing details, such as a 16-year-old boy being forced into a toilet block, beaten bloody, and called “f***ot” and a “kaffir”, or nonbeliever, as he begs for his life.

One video leaked from an Australian chat group shows a bloodied victim held in a headlock as attackers yell “Islamic State lives”, while they extort money from him and threaten to kill him.

“You wanna be gay?” one attacker asks, before stomping on his face.

The footage is part of recordings played in Sydney courts, circulated in chat groups, and obtained by ABC Investigations from court files, victims and members of the public.

The ABC found the attackers in the videos were linked to the same terrorist network as Naveed and Sajid Akram, the father and son responsible for the Hanukkah massacre that killed 15 people at Bondi Beach in December.

Five teenagers have so far been convicted over the bashings, several of whom were found to attend a radical Bankstown prayer hall, Al Madina Dawah Centre, which was ordered to close after the Bondi shooting. Police evidence have connected members of the group to two of Australia’s most influential pro-IS figures, spiritual leader Wisam Haddad and alleged youth recruiter Wassim Fayad.

The Sydney attacks are a broader part of a terrifying trend of hate crimes targeting the LGBTQIA+ community around Australia, with a focus on gay and bisexual men who use dating apps like Grindr or Wizz (an app for minors to date each other). This has led to the Victorian Greens establishing a parliamentary inquiry into the crimes, to investigate the radicalisation of the attackers, which includes influence from the far right. However it’s clear that the attacks aren’t contained to a single state, and need to be dealt with on a national level.

The attacks have inspired calls for a national response to anti-LGBTQIA+ hate crimes, as well as urgent measures to protect events like Sydney Mardi Gras.

“We are at risk of seeing these attacks that we’ve seen on videos turn deadly,” said Deakin University extremism researcher Josh Roose to the ABC. He goes on to say that LGBTQIA+ Australians are the most likely to be killed by violent extremists, after Australian Jews.

“It’s only a matter of time before a young man or men are killed.”

Read the ABC’s full investigation here.