One of the Bondi Beach gunmen was investigated over suspected ties to an Islamic State terror cell six years ago.
Naveed Akram, 24, came to the attention of Australia’s spy agency in 2019 over concerns that he had been radicalised by an IS leader. However, after a six-month investigation by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio), he was not deemed an “imminent threat” to the public.
Authorities believed he had pledged allegiance to IS, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
On Sunday, the bricklayer and his father, 50-year-old Saijd Akram, travelled to the Sydney beach and shot 15 people dead at a Hanukkah celebration. Police said they had no indication that he was planning the attack.
A Holocaust survivor who died protecting his wife and a British-born rabbi who had flown to Australia to ask the Government to do more to stop anti-Semitism were among those who lost their lives. The youngest victim was a “joyful and spirited” 10-year-old girl called Matilda.
Dozens more people were injured during the 11-minute attack, before police shot both gunmen. The elder Akram died at the scene. His son remained in hospital under police guard yesterday.
Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, said Naveed had been investigated for six months in 2019.
“He was examined on the basis of being associated with others and the assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,” he said.
Asio also had information that Naveed was linked to Isaac El Matari, an Islamic State terrorist who was jailed for seven years in 2021 over his plans to carry out terror attacks in Sydney. It was concluded that there was no “indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence”, Albanese said.
Investigations are continuing into the suspects’ radicalisation and any failures by police or intelligence agencies to disrupt the plot.
It also emerged on Monday that, despite Australia’s strict gun laws, firearms used in the shooting were believed to have been legally bought by Sajid, who held a licence for six high-powered hunting weapons.
New South Wales state officials confirmed that they would consider firearms reforms, and Albanese called an emergency meeting to discuss licensing restrictions.
The Akrams had told their family that they were on a beach holiday on the New South Wales coast on Sunday.
Instead, they rented an AirBnB in the west of Sydney, allegedly to finalise their attack plans and store ammunition and weapons, before driving to Bondi.
The father and son were armed with at least three hunting rifles and homemade explosive devices when they perched on a footbridge above the beachside park and began firing on adults and children playing below.
Several more lives could have been lost if it had not been for Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian migrant who disarmed one of the gunmen. Witness footage captured the moment he ran out from his hiding place behind a car to jump on the back of one of the terrorists before seizing his gun.
Chris Minns, the New South Wales premier, posted a photo of Al-Ahmed in hospital and praised the “real-life hero”.
Donald Trump, the US President, said he had “great respect” for the “brave” man, while King Charles praised the “heroic actions”, which he said had “prevented even greater horror and tragedy”.
Ahmed was shot up to five times in his shoulder by the “monsters” he helped to stop, his parents said. His father, Mohamed Fateh Al Ahmed, said his son, who is Muslim, had served in the police and would risk his life to help anyone.
“When he did what he did, he wasn’t thinking about the background of the people he’s saving, the people dying in the street,” he told the ABC. “Especially here in Australia, there’s no difference between one citizen and another.”
His son’s “conscience and his soul compelled him to pounce on one of the terrorists and to rid him of his weapon”, Ahmed told the Australian Financial Review.
His mother, Malakeh Hasan al-Ahmed, said: “My son has always been brave, helps people. He saw people were dying and losing their lives, and when [the attacker] ran out of ammo, he took [the gun] from him, but he was hit.”
At Bondi Beach on Monday, piles of discarded shoes, goggles, towels and children’s toys lay in the sand as a reminder of the moment beachgoers were forced to run for their lives.
Mourners prayed and sang at a memorial that lasted into the night, lighting Hanukkah candles as they refused to let their culture be snuffed out by hatred.
Rabbi Yossi Shuchat lit the candles on the menorah, a candelabrum that symbolises the Jewish faith, to show that “no matter how much darkness people attempt to bring to the world, lightness, light will always, always prevail”.
“Darkness has no power where light arrives, and therefore we implore everyone to be that light in their surroundings,” said Rabbi Yossi. “The best way to ban evil is to shine a light.”
He said he would remember the friends who had died in Sunday’s terror attack “in the way they’d like to be remembered”.
Mourners expressed shock that a gun attack could happen on Australian soil, where some of the tightest controls in the world have been in place since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, when a gunman killed 35 people.
But Jewish people said they were also not surprised, given that the community had warned of growing threats to Australian Jewish lives since Hamas’ October 7 attacks in Israel, when the Palestinian militant group killed more than 1200 people and took about 250 hostages.
The shooting should serve as a “wake-up call” to the Australian Prime Minister, said Roger Kilinsky, who was mourning the loss of Frenchman Dan Elkayam, his nephew’s best friend.
Kilinsky queried why police had not been guarding the hundreds of Jews who attended Sunday’s festival, saying: “He has to protect every citizen in Australia. I’m sure he is aware now that the Jewish people are pretty much in danger all the time.”
Mark Leach, an Anglican pastor and the founder of the Never Again is Now campaign against anti-Semitism, said his group was one of many to have warned politicians about the rise of hateful jihadist Islamism in the past two years.
“Last night, Jewish Australians paid in their blood for our Government’s policy failures,” he added.
Albanese pledged to do all he could to end the “scourge” of anti-Semitism in Australia, saying: “We will dedicate every single resource that is required in responding to this.”
Albanese said the government was considering ways to standardise gun laws across all states, including introducing limits on the number of weapons one person can own, and mandatory review of licences.
“People’s circumstances change, people can be radicalised over a period of time,” he said. “Licences should not be in perpetuity.”
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