A father and son checked into a low-key budget hotel in Davao, in the southern Philippines, on Nov. 1, after flying into the country from Australia. They were holed up there for nearly a month and stayed largely in their room, staff said Thursday, before returning to Sydney where they are accused of killing 15 people at a beachside Hanukkah event. The Islamic State militant group that inspired them has praised but not officially claimed the attack, referring to it in an official publication as “Sydney’s pride.” The area the suspects traveled to has been seen as a hot spot for violent extremism — a reputation the Philippine government insists is outdated, while it dismisses the idea that the pair received any training in the Southeast Asian nation for the attack. But why they went to the Philippines in the month before the massacre, what they did at the hotel and who they may have met with is now the focus of authorities investigating the shooting. Holed up in Davao The city of Davao, on the southern island of Mindanao, is one of the main entry points to inland areas that have a history of Islamist insurgency, and which analysts say still contain pockets of extremist fighters. Immigration officials have confirmed that the suspects traveled from Sydney to the Philippines on Nov. 1 and reported Davao as their final destination. Australian law enforcement has identified the two suspects as 24-year-old Naveed Akram and his 50-year-old father, Sajid Akram. The elder Akram was shot dead at the scene Sunday, while his son was charged Wednesday with 59 offenses, including terrorism and 15 counts of murder, after waking from a coma. In Davao, the pair stayed at the GV Hotel, a hotel staffer told NBC News on Thursday, originally making a booking for one week and later extending their stay. “Normal guest here,” said the front desk staffer, when reached by the hotel’s main phone number on its website, who identified himself only as Georgio. They would walk outside, buy food and return to the hotel to sleep, he said, adding they were “not suspicious.” Local police visited the hotel Wednesday and Thursday and asked for surveillance footage, he said. The two men typically only left their room for an hour or so each day and largely kept to themselves, night desk manager Angelica Ytang, 20, told the AFP news agency. They would leave the hotel in the morning but “didn’t stay out long … the longest we observed was about one hour,” Ytang said. The duo never discussed the purpose of their stay, she said, adding that “they weren’t approachable like other foreigners.” Officials have offered few details about the trip. New South Wales police said the pair’s travel hadn’t triggered any security alerts, though Australian counterterrorism officials confirmed they had investigated the son for six months in 2019 over potential extremist associations. Officials in the Philippines say there is no evidence the pair received military-style training during their November trip, and have vehemently rejected suggestions their country is a hot bed for terrorism. “A mere visit does not support allegations of terrorist training and the duration of their stay would not have allowed for any meaningful or structured training,” national security adviser Eduardo Año said Wednesday. Pockets of extremism remain, experts say Though terrorism has declined massively in the predominantly Catholic country, especially since a sweeping anti-terror law passed by then-President Rodrigo Duterte in 2020, dozens of fighters supporting ISIS ideology remain fragmented around Mindanao, experts say. “Just because the insurgency has gone away doesn’t mean that these hundreds of Islamic State true believers have gone away,” said Greg Barton, the chair of global Islamic politics at Deakin University in Australia. Australia Dec 17 Bondi Beach shooting suspect charged with 15 counts of murder after waking from a coma Australia Dec 15 What we know about the father and son suspects in the Bondi Beach attack Mindanao was colonized by the Spanish, the United States and Filipino Christian settlers, reducing its Muslim majority population to a minority. In recent decades, the resource-rich area has suffered from violence that killed about 150,000 people, with bloody battles over land and political power. Mindanao also became a stronghold for radical Islamist groups, who during the late 1980s and ’90s pledged their allegiance to Al Qaeda. As Al Qaeda was stamped out, many remaining fighters turned their allegiance to ISIS. “The Philippines became the main training hub of Southeast Asian fighters during the Al Qaeda days, and became the epicenter of East Asia Wilaya during the ISIS days,” said Rommel Banlaoi, chairman of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, referring to the regional branch of ISIS. A peace deal signed in 2014 granted broader Muslim autonomy and brought many rebel leaders into the fold of the country’s efforts against ISIS. But some groups splintered off, including the ISIS-affiliated Abu Sayyaf, blacklisted by the U.S. for carrying out mass kidnappings, executions and deadly bombings. In 2017, these groups captured Marawi, the country’s biggest Muslim-majority city, but many fighters were killed in the bloody monthslong siege and they have been further weakened since. The reports describing Mindanao as a continued hot spot for extremist ideology were “outdated,” said Año, the national security adviser, who pointed to the military’s efforts in degrading the ISIS-affiliated groups in the area. Mindanao had a reputation as an area that would draw small numbers of foreign fighters to train, however, and Davao has served as “one of the main points of entry” to the areas where militants are still present, said Rohan Gunaratna, a professor of security studies at Nanyang Technology University in Singapore. Año said the remnants of these terrorist organizations were “fragmented, deprived of leadership and operationally degraded,” adding “there have been no recorded terrorist training activities” by these groups. And experts largely agreed. “These organizations are not very active now,” Banlaoi said. Gunaratna said remaining militants, perhaps only a few dozen, were still active in the southernmost part of the island, about three hours drive from Davao. “Their strength is very, very low,” he added. Australian authorities have said it appears the father and son in Sydney had acted alone, but the fact that two ISIS flags were found in the son’s car showed they “clearly wanted to be seen in acting in the name” of ISIS, Barton, of Deakin University, said. So even if they did not receive training in the Philippines, he said, they could have been meeting “with people they would respect as Islamic State” militant group leaders. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed. ...read more read less