Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday that a father and son were motivated by “Islamic State ideology” when they opened fire on Bondi Beach in one of Australia’s deadliest mass shootings.
On Sunday night, Sajid Akram and his son Naveed opened fire on a crowd of Jews gathered on a famous beach for Hanukkah, killing 15 people and injuring dozens more.
Authorities said the attack was intended to sow fear among the nation’s Jews, but so far no details about the shooter’s deeper motives have been revealed.
Albanese gave the first hint that the two were radicalized by an “ideology of hate.”
“This appears to be driven by the ideology of the Islamic State,” Albanese told state broadcaster ABC.
“The world has been grappling with extremism and this hateful ideology with the rise of ISIS more than a decade ago,” he said in a separate interview.
After the shooting, police found a car registered to Naveed Akram near the beach.
New South Wales police commissioner Mal Lanning said on Tuesday they found improvised bombs and “two homemade Islamic State flags”, another name for the Islamic State group.
Authorities are facing growing questions about whether they could have acted earlier to prevent the attack.
Albanese said Naveed Akram, reportedly an unemployed bricklayer, came to the attention of Australian intelligence agencies in 2019 but was not considered an imminent threat at the time.
“They interviewed him, they interviewed his family, they interviewed the people around him,” Albanez said.
“He was not seen as a person of concern at the time.”
Police are still piecing together the pair’s movements before the shooting.
A key question is whether they met Islamic extremists during their visit to the Philippines last month, Australian media reported.
“The reason why they went to the Philippines, their purpose and where they went is currently under investigation,” Lanning told reporters on Tuesday.
Navid reportedly told his mother on the day of the attack that he was going out of town to go fishing.
Instead, authorities believe he hid in a rental apartment while his father planned the attack.
Armed with long-barreled guns, they opened fire on the beach and a nearby park for 10 minutes before police shot and killed 50-year-old Sajid.
Navid, 24, remains unconscious in hospital under police guard.
– Tougher gun controls? –
The dead included a 10-year-old girl, a Holocaust survivor and a local rabbi, while 42 others were rushed to hospitals with gunshot wounds and other injuries.
Australian leaders agreed on Monday to strengthen laws allowing father Sajid to own six guns.
Mass shootings have been rare in Australia since a lone gunman killed 35 people in the tourist town of Port Arthur in 1996.
The Port Arthur massacre sparked a world-leading crackdown that included a gun buyback program and restrictions on semi-automatic weapons.
But many Australians now question whether these laws are enough to cope with the steady growth in online sales and private ownership of firearms.
“This terrible situation right now really makes me personally feel that they need to be stricter,” David Sovyer, 43, told AFP.
“Not many people need guns,” said retiree Allan McRae, 75.
“If more people have less access to guns, it makes this less likely to happen,” he told AFP.
– Failure to take action –
The attack also reignited accusations that Australia is dragging its feet in the fight against anti-Semitism.
“I have been very aware of the past four years. I am very aware of the danger of rising anti-Semitism,” Israel’s ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon said during a visit to a memorial to the victims on Tuesday.
Robert Gregory, president of the Jewish Council of Australia, told AFP the government had “failed to take appropriate action to protect the Jewish community”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Australia’s decision this year to recognize Palestinian statehood “added fuel to the fire of anti-Semitism”.
Thousands of Australians desperately queued to donate blood to the injured.
The Australian Red Cross said more than 7,000 people had donated blood on Monday, breaking the previous national record.
A makeshift floral memorial grew in size along Bondi Beach on Monday night as mourners gathered to pay their respects to the victims and mark the second day of Hanukkah.
Hundreds of mourners, including members of the Jewish community, sang, clapped and hugged each other.
“Our only power is to bring light to the world,” one rabbi told the crowd as he presided over the lighting of the menorah.
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