What to know about a Philippines region with militant history visited by Bondi Beach suspects

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The southern Philippines once drew small numbers of foreign militants aligned with al-Qaida or the Islamic State group to train in a secessionist conflict involving minority Muslims in the largely Catholic nation.

That backdrop prompted an investigation this week by Australian and Filipino into a recent trip to the southern Philippine region of Mindanao by the father and son accused of gunning down 15 people at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday.

Australian police said the attack was inspired by the Islamic State group. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Tuesday the IS link assessment was based on evidence obtained, including “the presence of Islamic State flags in the vehicle that has been seized.”

The Bureau of Immigration in Manila said Tuesday that the suspects stayed in the Philippines from Nov. 1 to Nov. 28 with the southern city of Davao as their final destination before flying back to Australia.

Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Año told The Associated Press without elaborating on Thursday that the suspected gunmen stayed in a budget hotel in downtown Davao city and there was no indication that the two received any training for the attack in the Philippines.

“There is no valid report or confirmation that the two received any form of military training while in the country and no evidence supports such a claim at present,” Año, a former military chief of staff, said in a statement. He said that "the duration of their stay would not have allowed for any meaningful or structured training.”

Here is a look at the details of Islamic militancy in the southern Philippines:

Davao is one of the key cities on the island of Mindanao from which travelers can access interior provinces, which have a history of Muslim rebel attacks in the past.

Centuries of colonialism by the Spanish, the United States and Filipino Christian settlers turned Muslims into a minority group in resource-rich Mindanao, the southern third of the archipelago that has seen decades of intermittent but bloody conflicts over land, resources and political power.

Since the 1970s, about 150,000 combatants and civilians have died in the southern Philippines while development was stunted in the country's poorest region. Western and Asian governments feared the tenacious insurgencies could help foster Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia.

Among the foreign militants who have sought sanctuary in Mindanao was Umar Patek, an Indonesian and leading member of Jemaah Islamiyah, a network linked to al-Qaida. He was convicted of helping make explosives used in the 2002 nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia, that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists including 88 Australians. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2011, according to Philippine security officials.

The Philippines government and Muslim separatists signed a peace pact in 1996 that allowed thousands of rebels to return to their communities in Mindanao and retain their firearms.

A separate peace agreement signed in 2014 provided broader Muslim autonomy in exchange for the gradual deactivation of thousands of fighters. The pact turned some of the fiercest rebel commanders into administrators of a Muslim autonomous region called Bangsamoro.

More importantly, it turned the rebel front into guardians against the Islamic State group and its effort to gain a foothold in Mindanao.

At least four smaller groups broke off from the two largest Muslim rebel fronts that signed peace deals. The groups included the violent Abu Sayyaf, which would be blacklisted as a terror organization by the U.S. and the Philippines for mass kidnappings for ransom, beheadings and deadly bombings.

Most Abu Sayyaf commanders, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, were killed in battle, including a 2017 siege of southern Marawi, a city in Mindanao, by Filipino forces backed by U.S. and Australian surveillance aircraft.

Decades of military offensives have considerably weakened Abu Sayyaf and other armed groups and there has been no indication of any presence of foreign militants in the southern Philippines after the last two groups were “neutralized” in 2023, according to a senior Philippine security official and a confidential joint assessment by the military and police early last year that was seen by the AP.

Early this month, the Philippine army reported troops killed a suspected bomb maker and leader of Dawlah Islamiyah-Hassan, a group linked to IS, in southern Maguindanao del Sur province.

Sidney Jones, a U.S.-based analyst who has studied Islamic militant movements in Southeast Asia, said that given such militant setbacks it was hard to see why the suspected Bondi Beach attackers would want to train in Mindanao.

“The level of violence in Mindanao is high, but for the last three years, it’s almost all been linked to elections, clan feuds, or other sources,” Jones said. “If I were a would-be ISIS fighter, the Philippines would not have been my top destination.”

A police vehicle passes by a budget hotel in downtown Davao City, southern Philippines on Wednesday Dec. 17, 2025, as they assist investigations on where Bondi beach suspects reportedly stayed while in the country in November. (AP Photo/Manman Dejeto)

The coffin of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, a victim in the Bondi Beach mass shooting, is escorted out of a synagogue after his funeral service in Bondi on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, Pool)

Relatives of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was killed in the Bondi shootings, react over his coffin during his funeral at Synagogue in Bondi, Sydney, Wednesday, Dec.17, 2025. (Hollie Adams/Pool Photo via AP)

The coffin of Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, a victim in the Bondi Beach mass shooting, is carried into a chapel for his funeral in Sydney, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, father-in-law of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, a victim in the Bondi Beach mass shooting, speaks at his funeral at a synagogue in Bondi on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, Pool)

LOUISA, Va. (AP) — Michael Shull never imagined that a Democrat from the wealthy suburbs of Washington would represent his community in Congress. His corner of Virginia, with its sprawling farms and winding country roads, has been electing Republicans for more than three decades.

Then came an unusual nationwide redistricting battle, with Democrats and Republicans redrawing congressional lines to boost their chances in November's midterm elections. Virginia could be next as voters consider a new map that would pair conservative rural areas with liberal suburbs, diluting Republicans' electoral clout.

“Politicians should be elected to be their people’s voice,” said Shull, a Republican member of Augusta County’s board of supervisors. “Not their party’s voice.”

The vote on the constitutional amendment is on April 21, and early balloting has begun. If voters pass the referendum and it survives a court challenge, Shull's area within the county would be split between the 7th and 9th Congressional Districts. While the 9th District would be the state's lone Republican stronghold, the 7th District would resemble a lobster with the long tail beginning in Democrat-dominated Arlington and two claws reaching south into rural communities.

Congressional districts are usually redrawn once a decade, but President Donald Trump started a chain reaction last year by encouraging Texas Republicans to devise a new map to help the party in November. After a cascade of redistricting efforts, Republicans believe they can win a combined nine more U.S. House seats in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, while Democrats think they can win a total of six more seats in California and Utah. Virginia could give Democrats an extra four seats — enough to overturn the GOP's slim majority, at least as things stand now.

“It’s about making sure that we fight back to what Trump’s done,” said U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., He said the party needs to persuade voters that the referendum is "not about embracing gerrymandering.”

“I feel optimistic, but it’s close,” he said.

The referendum comes at a moment when Virginia Democrats have tried to make up ground in rural areas. Last year, Democrat Abigail Spanberger campaigned for governor in oyster towns and agrarian hamlets to engage with more conservative voters. Before that winning campaign, she had represented a congressional district that mixed city suburbs, exurbs and adjacent rural communities.

“Anyone who’s doing their job will be responsive to the communities that they seek to represent,” Spanberger said.

But her results were mixed. In counties where fewer people lived in rural areas, she outperformed Democrat Kamala Harris' Virginia showing in the 2024 presidential race by an average of 6 percentage points or 7 percentage points. In more rural counties, Spanberger gained about 2 percentage points to 4 percentage points.

Democrat Anthony Flaccavento, former congressional candidate and co-founder of the nonprofit Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, is torn over the referendum.

“At some level, it feels like kicking the can down the road -– which is something that my party has done for a long time –- when it comes to winning back rural and working-class voters,” Flaccavento said.

Democrats in rural areas who are tired of being outnumbered by their Republican neighbors are embracing the redistricting plan.

“Fight Back, Vote Yes,” said a sign at a No Kings protest in Louisa County. A second said, “Vote Yes. Stop ICE. No Kings.”

State Del. Dan Helmer, who helped spearhead the redistricting effort, greeted protesters and spoke to the cheering crowd. Helmer is now one of at least four Democrats running in the 7th District.

Helmer said Republicans “think that in red areas like Louisa and in rural areas, that people don’t know what’s going on. But I’m looking around right now, I see strong, proud patriots who know exactly what is going on, who know that we have an aspiring dictator who is trying to take away our democracy.”

Jennifer Lee, who has lived in Louisa for 33 years, said she was eager to support the new district lines. Lee said she felt Republicans were perpetuating a double standard, falsely claiming the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden was stolen from Trump but accepting his push to eliminate Democratic seats through gerrymandering.

“That’s their slogan, right? ‘Stop the steal,’” Lee said. “But they started ‘the steal.’ They’re stealing the seats now in all these districts.”

At a town hall hosted by Democrats at a rural Goochland County recreation center, voters nibbled on finger foods and passed around bottled water as they debated whether redistricting violated some kind of moral code.

“I’m sorry, morality just goes out the door right now. We have to do what it takes for us to survive,” said Bruce Silverman, a local nephrologist. He was voting “yes.”

At one point, Roberta Thacker-Oliver stood up to talk. She votes in the rural 9th District, which would become even more Republican with the new map.

“In the redistricting, the 9th is going to become bigger and redder,” she said, adding, “I need to know what to tell my community about why they need to take one for the team."

“What do we tell them?” she said.

Associated Press writers Maya Sweedler, Ashlyn Still and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.

Goochland Democratic Committee member Richard Grebe stick an "I Voted" sticker on his shirt during a lunch meeting on future get-out-the-vote efforts for the Virginia redistricting referendum, Thursday, April 2, 2026, at GG's Pizza in Maiden, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Fliers lay on a table as members of the Goochland Democratic Committee Jen Strozier, Doug Mock, Chris Svoboda, Richard Grebe and Judi Sheppard hold a lunch meeting on future get-out-the-vote efforts for the Virginia redistricting referendum, Thursday, April 2, 2026, at GG's Pizza in Maiden, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Members of the Goochland Democratic Committee Jen Strozier, Doug Mock, Chris Svoboda, Richard Grebe and Judi Sheppard hold a lunch meeting on future get-out-the-vote efforts for the Virginia redistricting referendum, Thursday, April 2, 2026, at GG's Pizza in Maiden, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A print edition of the Goochland Gazette, with a front page story on the Virginia redistricting referendum, lies on a table at GG's Pizza as members of the Goochland Democratic Committee Jen Strozier, Doug Mock, Chris Svoboda, Richard Grebe and Judi Sheppard hold a lunch meeting on future get-out-the-vote efforts, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Maiden, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Signs in support of the Virginia redistricting referendum are seen as Jen Strozier and Doug Mock, members of the Goochland Democratic Committee, order lunch at GG's Pizza, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Maiden, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)