Australian leader says Bondi Beach suspects were “motivated by Islamic State ideology,” as their histories emerge

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday that the father and son accused of an anti-Semitic terrorist attack at a Hanukkah rally on Bondi Beach were motivated by ISISas Indian officials confirmed that the old man was originally from that nation.

Authorities also revealed that the gunmen had recently returned from the Philippines, when they arrived in an area known as hotbed for terrorist groups.

A mass shooting at a popular beach it left 15 innocent people deadincluding a 10-year-old girl and a Holocaust survivor. This attack “was inspired by the Islamic State, said Albanese on Tuesday when he visited one of the warriors who was trying to stop the attackers.

Australian police commissioner Krissy Barrett also said Tuesday it was a “terrorist attack inspired by the Islamic State,” referring to the now splinter group, which for several years has held large swaths of territory along the Syria-Iraq border.

The suspects, a father and son aged 50 and 24, were used legally owned firearms by an elderly man, officials in the state of New South Wales have identified him as Sajid Akram. He was shot and died at the scene, his son was still being treated at the hospital on Tuesday, where he returned.

The Indian police confirmed that the father was from Hyderabad

Police in the southern Indian state of Telangana confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that Sajid Akram is from the city of Hyderabad. In a statement, police said he obtained a degree in Hyderabad before moving to Australia in November 1998, where he married a woman of European origin.

Sajid Akram held an Indian passport, while his son Naveed and daughter were born in Australia and are citizens of the country, police said, confirming earlier statements by Australian officials about the son’s citizenship. US officials told CBS News shortly after the attack that at least one of the Akrams was believed to be from Pakistan, but that appeared to be a case of mistaken identity, and a man with the same name as the younger suspect came forward in Sydney and said he had been mistakenly identified.

Telangana police said the elder Akram had “limited contact with his family in Hyderabad for the past 27 years,” visiting six times since moving to Australia, “mainly for family-related reasons.”

A police statement said family members in India “did not disclose information about his mental illness or his activities, or the circumstances that led to his illness, and that the son’s appearance appeared to be “unrelated to India.”

Australian officials confirmed that homemade ISIS flags – and an improvised explosive device – had been found in the suspects’ car at Bondi Beach on Sunday, and police provided new details on Tuesday about their latest movements.

The suspected gunmen spent most of November in the Philippines

Both men traveled to the Philippines in November, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters on Tuesday, adding that investigators were still looking into the reasons for the trip and where the men went.

The Philippines Bureau of Immigration said both Sajid Akram and his son, widely identified by Australian media as Naveed Akram, spent most of November – from the 1st to the 28th – in the Philippines, and listed Davao City as their final destination.

Muslims are different, including the Islamist group Abu Sayyaf which was once publicly supported by ISIS, is active in that southern part of the Philippines. The ABC, Australia’s public broadcaster, said the men had been trained in “military style” in the Philippines, citing security sources.

But Philippine presidential spokesperson Claire Castro, citing a statement from the National Security Council, said “there is no confirmed report or confirmation that the people involved in the Bondi Beach incident received any type of training in the Philippines,” according to the French news agency AFP.

That group and others in the region have drawn and trained other foreign fighters from across Asia, the Middle East and Europe in the past, according to the Associated Press, although Abu Sayyaf has been weakened in recent years by repeated military clashes.

AP cited military and police officials in the Philippines as saying that there has been no recent indication of foreign troops operating in the southern part of the country.

Did Australian officials fail the Jewish community?

Australian officials confirmed on Monday that Naveed Akram had been under investigation for nearly six months in 2019 for alleged links to a Sydney-based terrorist cell, despite the national intelligence agency finding he did not pose a threat, and officials said the probe was focused on associates.

Australia’s ABC network reported that his ties include “long-standing links” to members of ISIS-supporting cells in Australia, including links to jihadist spiritual leader Wisam Haddad and a man named Youssef Uweinat, who was convicted of recruiting young people in Australia to join the Islamic faith.

Haddad’s lawyer denied the pastor “had any knowledge of or involvement in the Bondi Beach shooting,” according to the network.

Many people, since the daughter of one of the victimsto the former Australian leader, told CBS News that the men’s history should have raised serious red flags, if not stopped before they killed so many people.

Israeli officials have sharply criticized the Australian government for failing to protect Jewish people amid a sharp increase in anti-Semitic incidents in recent years.

“Now we’re dealing with an increase in anti-Semitism, and Jewish Australians don’t feel safe in their own country, and this is crazy,” Israel’s Ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon told CBS News on Tuesday, urging Australian leaders to create opportunities for young people of different faiths to meet, “not once a year, but every week.”

Maimon also said that “restrictions should be imposed” by Australian authorities, referring to Palestinian protests held in the country.

“I believe that it is very important to ensure that although the law of freedom of speech must be maintained, there must be a limit to the language heard by other protesters, in other protests we are heard,” he said. “I always believe there is room to do more. Always. I ask myself every day, ‘what can I do better? How can I do better?’ And I try to do it. And I expect the Australian government to do better. “

The former Australian leader says there are no easy answers

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told CBS News on Tuesday that the national government undoubtedly has big questions to answer, but stressed that intelligence gathering – across nations – is an imperfect science.

“This kind of terrorism has been around in Australia for a long time, and our agencies spend a lot of time looking at them, but it’s difficult to track everyone,” said Turnbull, who was prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018.

“Of course, the biggest question is: Why does someone living in Sydney need to be six arms long, like [Sajid Akram] they had it, even though they had a license? The second question is, why did they give a license to someone who had a son who had been in ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organization] watch list because of links to ISIS-related businesses? … And that trip to the Philippines raises another question: Why were they there? And then, you know, this goes back to the problem that I think we’re facing all over the world, are websites talking to each other? Are we actually connecting all the dots in time?”

“There are holes in everybody’s intelligence,” Turnbull said. “But as you know, terrorists should be right only once. Security agencies should always be right.”

Regarding the heavy criticism made by many in the Jewish community, in particular, due to the perceived failure to detect the threat posed by the suspects, and to adequately protect the Jewish event that was previously planned at Bondi Beach, Turnbull said that he was not sure how much his successor Albanese could have done.

“I’ve been prime minister, haven’t I? And I’m on the other side of politics, so I’m not trying to get involved in this, but I’m struggling to see what he could have done differently. I mean there were people who said he shouldn’t have allowed pro-Palestine marches. Well, you know, we have freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in Australia. I mean we have freedom of speech in Australia, some speech, and restrictions in Australia.”

“When I ask people, they’ll say he should have renounced religion many times. I’ve never heard him do anything other than renounce it, but my question really is, would that have made a difference? For those terrorists, you know, they’re not going to listen to a lecture on the evils of antisemitism from you or me or Anthony Albanese.”

“Remember, terrorism is a political act, right? So, you have to try to disrupt radicalized people, especially young men, they are the most vulnerable group, and that involves monitoring what is said on the internet, what they are taught, you know, in schools or mosques or other places. And the intelligence agencies do that all the time,” he said.