James*, 16, screams as a pack of black-clad teenagers drag him to the ground and stomp on his head while an attacker films on his phone in Sydney's Strathfield Park.
In another video, the gang forces a different 16-year-old into a toilet block and repeatedly punches him while calling him a "f*****" and a "kafir", or nonbeliever. Blood runs down his face as he begs, "I'll do anything."
A third clip shows a boy in a cropped top lying silent on the grass, his hands shielding his face as he is repeatedly stomped on and called a "gay dog", while one attacker shouts "Dawlatul Islam" — Arabic for Islamic State (IS).
"I'll f***ing shoot you, you little dog," one attacker says, before the victim finally emits a single high-pitched cry, and the video cuts out.
A two-year ABC investigation into the reawakening of IS can reveal 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 them congregated around a radical Bankstown prayer hall, Al Madina Dawah Centre, which was ordered to close after the Bondi shooting.
In March 2024, James, 16, became the first known victim of the IS-inspired bashings whose case would end up in court.
The bisexual Wiradjuri teenager from south-west Sydney met a 17-year-old calling himself "Johnny" on Wizz, an app which markets itself as a safe place for minors to date.
About 10:30pm on a school night, "Johnny" picked him up from Liverpool station.
He drove James for 45 minutes, while two other teenagers hid in the car boot. Another waited at Strathfield Park.
As soon as they arrived, James was ambushed and hurled to the ground by four boys, aged 14 to 17, who yelled homophobic slurs.
Video recorded by one of the attackers, tendered to the court, shows one wearing a hoodie bearing the Shahada, an Islamic declaration of faith appropriated by Islamic State.
When police arrested the teenager who posed as 'Johnny', they found chat logs suggesting the attacks had been underway for at least 10 months.
In May 2023, he conspired in messages with a friend to lure, bash and rob gay young people, who he described as "kafir dogs", or nonbelievers.
"We keep doing that to gay c**ts on Wiiz [sic]," he wrote.
"Wallah we gunna make a living off this … We make them pay or we roll them."
His friend wrote: "We don't get sins for it since they're gay."
The exchange coincided with a spike in IS propaganda calling for attacks on LGBTQIA+ people and events.
The violence did not stop with the arrests of the IS sympathisers.
One video leaked from an Australian chat group shows a bloodied victim held in a headlock as attackers yell "Islamic State lives", demand money and bay for his killing.
"You wanna be gay?" one attacker repeats, before stomping on his face.
Those same words are heard repeatedly in another clip, in which a 20-year-old university student is kicked unconscious.
While he lies motionless, his solo attacker stomps on his head repeatedly before leaving him for dead.
The victim told the ABC he suffered permanent facial injuries in the April 2025 attack.
A 17-year-old boy pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery over the bashing, but walked free on nine months' probation, with no conviction recorded.
The videos demonstrate that there are young men who are prepared to potentially act in an incredibly violent manner against those they believe are subhuman and who should be attacked.
For some in Sydney's LGBTQIA+ community, the videos evoke memories of the 1980s, when gay bashings were routine and rarely prosecuted.
This time, the violence was filmed, branded and shared — and, investigators say, tied to a network that would later carry out the deadliest terrorist attack on Australian soil.
*Names have been changed.
www.abc.net.au
