Sydney: The toll of Sunday’s Bondi Beach shooting incident in Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) has risen to 16. Among those killed was Sajid Akram (50), one of the two gunmen, involved in the shooting.
This was one of Australia’s deadliest such incident pin decades, authorities said, with the country’s prime minister Anthony Albanese calling for stricter gun laws.
“The government is prepared to take whatever action is necessary. Included in that is the need for tougher gun laws,” Albanese said, urging people to stand by the Jewish community in the country during this hour of crisis.
Sajid is known to have owned six weapons. The other shooter was his 24-year-old son Naveed. The two had left home, saying they were going on a fishing trip to Jervis Bay. Naveed has also been shot by the police and is now in critical state, CBS News cited New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon saying.
Sajid is from Pakistan and went to Australia on a student’s visa before settling down there. Naveed was born in that country, authorities have confirmed.
The shooting has been declared a “terrorist incident”, with two Islamic State (IS) flags being recovered during subsequent raids, ABC News reported.
Investigators believe that the duo had pledged allegiance to the IS. The two flags were recovered from their car parked near the beach, with footage from the scene showing one flag placed on the vehicle’s bonnet, it was reported.
It has also come to light that Australia’s domestic intelligence agency ASIO had previously examined Naveed about six years ago due to his close links with a Sydney-based IS terror cell. He was reportedly connected to Isaak El Matari, an IS operative arrested in 2019 and later jailed for plotting an insurgency in Australia. ASIO director-general Mike Burgess confirmed that one of the attackers was known to the agency, though not assessed as an immediate threat at the time.
The shooting occurred on the beach, where more than 1,000 people had gathered to celebrate the start of the Jewish festival Hanukkah. Armed with long-barrelled guns, the father-son duo indiscriminately targeted crowds at the popular tourist hotspot.
Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the Australian government and accused it of “pouring oil on the fire of antisemitism” in the period leading up to the shooting.
“Antisemitism is a cancer that spreads when leaders are silent and do not act,” AFP quoted him as saying.
Social media footage showed moments of bravery amid the terror, including a bystander who confronted one of the gunmen and wrestled a weapon away. Police quickly responded, shooting dead the older attacker.
Australian authorities declared the act a “terrorist incident”, with Albanese condemning it as “pure evil”.
“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location, Bondi Beach, that is associated with joy, associated with families gathering, associated with celebrations,” AFP quoted Albanese saying.
“It is forever tarnished by what has occurred last evening,” he added.
