Are we shocked by the latest update on the antisemitic terrorist attack in Australia? No. Australian authorities now confirm that ISIS influenced the assault. Over the weekend, two men, father and son, Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, shot and killed 15 people and wounded at least 40 more at Bondi Beach in Sydney. They opened fire on Jewish residents celebrating Hanukkah (via NYT):
NBC’s ‘Today’ says the Bondi Beach shooting at a Hanukkah celebration was done by a father and son “motivated by extremist ideology” but “there’s no evidence of any wider collusion” even though one “had come up in a previous investigation in 2019” pic.twitter.com/hWDG683B5j
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 15, 2025
Vehicle of younger Bondi Beach attacker contained two homemade ISIS flags, police say
— Steve Lookner (@lookner) December 16, 2025
(from press conference)
The gunmen behind the mass shooting at a Jewish celebration in Sydney on Sunday were motivated by “Islamic State ideology,” Australia’s prime minister said on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the suspects appeared to have been radicalized by beliefs associated with the Islamic State militant group.
“Radical perversion of Islam is absolutely a problem,” Mr. Albanese said at a news conference.
Investigators said that police had found two homemade Islamic State flags in the car that the suspects, a 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son, drove to the site of Sunday’s massacre. Police also recovered improvised explosive devices in the car, the authorities said.
At the news conference, officials named the older gunman, who was shot and killed at the scene, as Sajid Akram. Police had not released the suspects’ identities even though the identities of Mr. Akram and his son, Naveed, had been widely reported by Australian media.
The father was a licensed holder of six firearms that were legally registered to him, according to the authorities. The younger man was injured and remains in a coma.
Officials previously said the son had come to the authorities’ attention in 2019, but that it was determined that he did not pose an immediate threat. His father was also interviewed at the time, officials have said.
The Australian news media has reported, citing unnamed police sources, that the 2019 investigation was over his links to a self-proclaimed Islamic State commander based in Sydney who was later prosecuted for plotting a terrorist attack.
Sajid is reportedly dead, shot by police. Naveed was wounded. Australian police initially froze during the attack. Sajid was a legal gun owner with the state for a decade and was also investigated for terror ties. An unarmed vendor, Ahmed al-Ahmed, risked his life to tackle one of the shooters.
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