Davao City mosques in Philippines to display photos of Sajid and Naveed Akram

Davao, like the Philippines, is mostly Catholic, but it is also the largest city on the Island of Mindanao, where Islamist militants have been historically active in places accessible by road. Homemade Islamic State flags were discovered in the car the Akrams used to travel to Bondi Beach for their December 14 shooting attack.

The Philippines government hit back last week at media reports that it believed portrayed Mindanao as a hub of violent extremism and terrorist training grounds, saying Islamic State-inspired groups had been “fragmented, deprived of leadership, and operationally degraded”.

Staff at the GV Hotel, where the Akrams stayed for 27 days, said the men only left their room for one or two hours each day. If correct, this would mean they could not have travelled far from Davao, if at all.

Asked if there were extremist Islamist elements within the city itself, Sheikh Pasigan said he had “no information”.

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He said he was scheduled to meet with another senior Islamic leader soon to share information and discuss ways to get information about the Bondi shooters into the Muslim community. He also suggested the leadership could conduct its own investigation to feed to police.

Regional police director Leon Victor Rosete said on Sunday that investigators were still conducting “backtracking operations” to identify any people the Akrams interacted with and to assess “possible links for support networks”.

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