Almost seven years after ISIS was stripped of its final territorial holdings, a pair of major terrorist attacks carried out in its name over a single weekend have revealed the group’s enduring resilience.

On Saturday, two United States Army soldiers and an American civilian interpreter in an attack near Palmyra, Syria, that U.S. officials and the Syrian government have blamed on an

The next day, two men killed at least 15 people and injured dozens more in an attack on a Hanukkah event at , which Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese later said appeared to have been inspired by ISIS.

At a Tuesday press conference, Albanese stated, “It would appear that there is evidence that this was inspired by a terrorist organization, by ISIS. Some of the evidence which is being procured, including the presence of Islamic State flags in the vehicle that has been seized, are a part of that.”

Never been defeated

According to experts, these attacks demonstrate that ISIS continues to pose a significant global threat.

Colin Clarke, executive director of the Soufan Center, told TIME, “The group’s never been defeated. That’s to say nothing about its ideology, which continues to resonate clearly with individuals around the globe.”

Clarke noted that while ISIS is not a daily concern for him, the terrorist group’s influence remains potent despite its fragmented structure.

The group once controlled a substantial territorial empire across Iraq and Syria until its defeat by a U.S.-led coalition in March 2019. Some 2,500 ISIS fighters to remain active in Syria and Iraq, however.

While the U.S. supplied the bulk of the coalition’s air power, backing Kurdish-led forces on the ground, Clarke observes that Washington and other world powers have since redirected their attention to other escalating crises.

Clarke explained, “After 20 years of the global war on terrorism, there was a certain amount of fatigue that set in. We’ve shifted resources to other things like the rise of China, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Israeli war against Hamas and Gaza. But terrorism will continue to remain a threat for the foreseeable future. It’s a tactic, so it’s not something that can be defeated.”

Austin Doctor, director of strategic initiatives at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE), concurs. “The public record is clear that ISIS [is] remaining active. The related threat is not going away any time soon,” he tells TIME.

“The Islamic State threat is present in its traditional base of operations in the Middle East, expanding across a growing portfolio of entrenched terrorist insurgencies in various regions of Africa, and perpetuated further by enabled and inspired attackers living in Western nations,” he adds.

ISIS groups can still provide support

Officials described Sunday’s Bondi Beach shooting as an antisemitic assault on Hanukkah celebrants that claimed fifteen lives, with victims ranging in age from 10 to 87. At least forty others sustained injuries.

According to New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon, the suspects journeyed to the Philippines in November, one month prior to the attack. The Philippines Bureau of Immigration reported that the two alleged gunmen designated the southern city of Davao as their ultimate destination.

Clarke noted that Southeast Asia has historically served as a “hotbed of Jihadist military.” He added, “There’s a number of groups that have popped up over the years, including Abu Sayyaf, but others as well. That ISIS branch has been significantly weakened, but it’s never been fully defeated, and so it still has the ability to provide logistical support, training, and provide inspiration to individuals that live in the West and harbor grievances that dovetail with ISIS ideology.”

The Abu Sayyaff Group, ISIS’s branch in East Asia, is listed as “the most violent of the Islamic separatist groups operating in the southern Philippines,” from the office of the Director of National Intelligence. The group has long attempted to establish an independent Islamic state in the region.

Clarke pointed to other recent ISIS-related attacks, including a New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans that authorities say killed and injured dozens of others. The suspect in the case was found with an ISIS flag in his vehicle after ramming a pickup truck into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street.

He warned, “I’m very concerned that between now and the end of the year, we could see a potential plot here in the United States. And I’m furthermore concerned because we’ve scaled back our counterterrorism capabilities quite a bit.”