Bondi Beach’s ‘father and son gunmen’: Pair ‘pledged allegiance to ISIS earlier than bloodbath’, father arrived in nation from Pakistan, son was deemed no risk by Aussie intelligence six years in the past

The father and son gunmen behind Sunday evening’s attack at the popular Bondi beach in Sydney allegedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before the massacre. 

Naveed Akram, 24, and his father Sajid Akram, 50, have been named as terror suspects responsible for killing at least 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration.

Victims include a 10-year-old girl, a Holocaust survivor, a London-born rabbi and a retired police officer.

Naveed Akram was arrested at the scene and taken to a Sydney hospital with critical injuries, while his 50-year-old father died after being shot by the police.

Sajid is understood to be originally from Pakistan, according to Australian media.  

The pair, armed with hunting rifles, opened fire at hundreds of people gathered to celebrate the first night of the Jewish festival, committing Australia’s worst mass shooting in three decades.

Sajid arrived in Australia on a student visa in 1998, which he transferred to a partner visa in 2001. He has held a resident return visa ever since, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said.

His son, an Australian-born citizen, was investigated by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) for six months in 2019 over close ties to a Sydney-based Islamic State terrorism cell. 

Authorities feared he was accessing extremist material online and speaking with other radicalised men, but an ‘assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,’ Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

Counter terrorism police believe the gunmen pledged allegiance to the ISIS terrorist group prior to carrying out the attack, according to Australian broadcaster ABC.

Two black and white ISIS flags were discovered in the attackers’ car, according to a senior official.

Sajid, a small business owner, held a gun licence for recreational hunting and legally possessed six firearms.

He was a member of a gun club and was entitled to a firearm licence under state legislation, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said.

Police believe the gunmen had prepared for the shooting at a short-term rental property around a 30-minute drive from Bondi Beach.

The five-bedroom, two-bathroom property tucked away in Sydney‘s inner-southwest suburb of Campsie was raided on Sunday evening, alongside a home in Bonnyrigg, an hour’s drive inland from Bondi.

The single-storey grey building, listed as La Casa Di Dicembre on short-stay accommodation platforms, has become one of the main focuses of the police investigation. 

Prime Minister Albanese said the ‘targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukah, which should be a day of joy … [was] an act of evil antisemitism’.

Just weeks before the mass shooting, Sajid and Naveed had returned to Australia from the Philippines, having visited the island of Mindanao.

NSW Police, the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation will be closely investigating what the pair were up to in the Southeast Asian nation.

Since 2019, the Philippines, especially Mindanao, has gained a reputation for being a hotspot of extremism. An Australian journalist survived after he was shot in the neck in 2017 while covering a battle against ISIS in the territory.

‘There’s areas down there that are very dangerous… (with) training camps and the like,’ a senior police source told the Daily Telegraph on Monday.

‘It has become a well trodden path for Islamic State through South East Asia and into the Philippines ever since 2019.’

In 2024 the Philippines ranked the 20th most dangerous nation in the world on the Global Terrorism Index.

That year alone saw the country suffer 22 terror attacks.

The same index ranked Australia 57th – noting a ‘sharp increase in anti-Semitic violence and hate crimes’.

The police source claimed early investigations pointed to the Akrams having ‘self radicalised’.

However, authorities are still investigating whether any recent interactions with foreign influences hardened their views.

The mother of Naveed, an unemployed bricklayer, said the 24-year-old had told family he had gone to Jervis Bay with his father for a weekend of fishing and swimming.

Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, she said: ‘He rings me up [on Sunday] and said: “Mum, I just went for a swim. I went scuba diving. We’re going… to eat now.”

‘And then this morning: “We’re going to stay home now because it’s very hot”.’ 

Verena was unable to identify her son from a photo at the scene of the shooting, but insisted he was a ‘good boy’ who is incapable of violence or extremism. 

‘He doesn’t have a firearm. He doesn’t even go out. He doesn’t mix around with friends. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t go to bad places,’ she said. 

‘He goes to work, he comes home, he goes to exercise, and that’s it.’

Verena said Akram had worked as a bricklayer until about two months ago when the company became insolvent. 

He had attended Cabramatta High School and was not particularly social, she said.

He lived at the three-bedroom Bonnyrigg home with his parents and younger sister and brother, around which police set up an exclusion zone on Sunday night.

Their neighbour, Lemanatua Fatu, told the Daily Mail she was shocked and scared to find out she was living opposite a killer.

‘We saw lots of police cars arriving in the street and especially in that house,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t sleep, watching everything – it was so scary.’

Asked about the killer and his family, she said: ‘We notice them coming and going everyday and they never say hello or anything, they were just normal people.

‘We saw them sometimes coming out of the house and doing normal things, it’s shocking and terrifying.’ 

Naveed’s Islamic teacher publicly condemned the attack and revealed he is now receiving death threats against his family.

Sydney-based Sheikh Adam Ismail, head of the Al-Murad Institute, said he felt compelled to speak out after an image began circulating on social media showing him presenting Naveed with a certificate for mastering the rules of proper pronunciation and recitation of the Quran.

‘Naveed approached the centre in late-2019 seeking Quran recitation and Arabic language classes, as I’ve done with thousands of students over the years, I’ve taught him Quran citation and Arabic only for a combined period of one year.

‘These were the only subjects I taught him and those are the areas I specialise in.

‘I condemn these acts of violence without any hesitation. I’m deeply saddened about what occurred and extend my sincere condolences to the victims, their families, and the Jewish community affected.

‘What I find deeply ironic is that the very Quran he’s learning to recite clearly states taking one innocent life is like killing all of humanity.’

The surviving gunman has been described as a ‘quiet loner’ who only had a small group of friends before dropping out of high school.

His former schoolmates told the Daily Mail they were ‘absolutely shocked’ to see his photo in the news after he and his father Sajid opened fire at the Jewish celebration.

Graduates of Cabramatta High School, in Sydney’s west, described Naveed as a ‘really nice, smart and polite kid’ and ‘the last person you would expect’ to be involved in such a horrific event. 

Akram is understood to have begun Year 7 at the school in 2014 before leaving around grade 10 or 11, later going on to work as a bricklayer.

A yearbook photo obtained by the Daily Mail shows Akram smiling among his peers in the school’s burgundy uniform.

Former classmate Steven Luong, who spent years playing sport alongside Akram, said his stomach dropped the moment the familiar face flashed across the screen.

‘I could have never imagined in 100 years that this could be his doing,’ he told Daily Mail. ‘He was a very nice person. He never did anything unusual.’

Naveed is expected to survive and will ‘likely’ face criminal charges, police have revealed.

‘Based on his medical condition, it’s likely that person may face criminal charges,’ NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said.

‘I’m very mindful of not prejudicing any prosecution of that person put before the court.’

Lanyon confirmed that Sajid met the eligibility criteria for the category AB firearms licence that he held.

‘He was a member of a gun club and was entitled, by nature of the Firearms Act, to have a firearms licence issued,’ he said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said: ‘The firearms registry conduct a thorough examination of all applications to ensure a person is fit and proper to hold a firearms licence.’

Lanyon also called for community calm.

‘Retribution or acts against any part of any community will not be accepted,’ he said.

‘We will have a significant policing presence. This is a time for the community to come together.

‘This is a time that police will take action to make sure the community feels safe.’

The 10-year-old child killed in Sunday’s attack has been identified by local media as Matilda.

‘Matilda was very friendly, she loves school, and has a lot of friends,’ Matilda’s aunt Lina told ABC News.

‘She’s just a happy kid, always gives me cuddles.’

Matilda was taken to Sydney’s Children’s Hospital at Randwick but lost a lot of blood and could not be saved. 

Her younger sister was present during the attack. Even though she is physically unharmed, she is ‘in absolute shock and stress, she’s missing her sister badly’.

Some 27 people are receiving care in hospitals across Sydney, while six remain in critical condition. 

Holocaust survivor Alexander Kleytman, who came to Australia from Ukraine, was also killed at the shooting, which he had attended with his children and grandchildren.

‘I have no husband. I don’t know where is his body. Nobody can give me any answer,’ his wife Larisa Kleytman, also a Holocaust survivor, told reporters outside a Sydney hospital late on Sunday.

‘We were standing and suddenly came the “boom boom”, and everybody fell down. At this moment he was behind me and at one moment he decided to go close to me. He pushed his body up because he wanted to stay near me,’ she told the Australian.

Chabad wrote on X that Alexander ‘died shielding her from the gunman’s bullets. In addition to his wife, he leaves behind two children and 11 grandchildren’.

London-born rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41, was the first victim to be named. 

His youngest child was just two months old. 

Known as the ‘Bondi Rabbi’, Schlanger was one of the key organisers of Sunday’s event.

He was the head of the local Chabad mission, an international Hasidic Jewish organisation based in Brooklyn.

‘My dear cousin, Rabbi Eli Schlanger @bondirabbi was murdered in today’s terrorist attack in Sydney,’ his cousin, Rabbi Zalman Lewis, wrote on Instagram. 

‘He leaves behind his wife & young children, as well as my uncle & aunt & siblings … He was truly an incredible guy.’

Former police officer Peter Meagher was working as a freelance photographer at the Hanukkah event when he was killed, his rugby club confirmed.

‘For him it was simply a catastrophic case of being in the wrong place and at the wrong time,’ Mark Harrison, the general manager of Randwick Rugby Club, wrote on its website.

‘Marzo, as he was universally known, was a much loved figure and absolute legend in our club, with decades of voluntary involvement, he was one of the heart and soul figures of Randwick Rugby.’

More than $1million has been raised for the hero who was wounded while disarming the alleged gunman during the Bondi Beach massacre.

Before his act of bravery, Ahmed el Ahmed told his cousin: ‘I’m going to die… tell my family I saved people’s lives.’

Incredible footage captured the moment the 43-year-old father of two, sprang on the shooter after he opened fire on Sunday night.

The Syrian-born fruit shop owner’s heroism has earned praise from Australia and beyond and came at a significant personal cost, landing him in hospital with two gunshot wounds to his shoulder.

The unbelievable footage has circulated widely online, prompting a GoFundMe campaign to be launched to raise funds for the hero, who remains under observation in hospital.

The campaign has so far raised more than $1million across more than 18,000 donations – including $100,000 from US billionaire Bill Ackman.