Bondi Beach shooters were father and son

Two gunmen involved in the incident Shooting at Bondi Beach Police announced that they were father and son.

The attackers who opened fire on Hanukkah celebrations in Sydney were identified as 24-year-old Naveed Akram and his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram. killed 15 people.

The 50-year-old father, who owned a grocery store, died after being shot by the police. His son remains in hospital under police guard.

Their home in Bonnyrigg, 50 kilometers west of Bondi, was raided by police hours after the massacre. Australia’s worst ever terror attack Since the Port Arthur mass shooting in 1996.

Speaking as officers surrounded their home, Naveed’s mother Verena insisted her son was a “good boy”.

He told the Sydney Morning Herald: “He doesn’t have a firearm. He doesn’t even go out. He doesn’t mingle with his friends. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t go to bad places… he goes to work, he comes home, he goes to exercise and that’s it.”

“Everyone wants to have a son like my son… he’s a good boy.”

The father and son told their families they had gone fishing at Jervis Bay, 200km south of Sydney, for the weekend.

Verena said he last spoke to Naveed on Sunday morning, hours before the attack.

He said: “He called me [on Sunday] and he said, Mother, I went swimming. I went scuba diving. “Now… we’ll have dinner, and then we’ll stay at home this morning because it’s so hot.”

Social media posts from an Islamic center in Australia indicate that Naveed completed his religious education in 2022, raising questions about possible radicalization and extremist networks operating in the country.

Adam Ismail, president of Al-Murad Islamic Institute, where Naveed studied, declined to comment when contacted by The Telegraph.

Naveed was laid off as a bricklayer when his company went bankrupt and he began looking for work in recent weeks.

His mother said he had many friends as a teenager at Cabramatta High School but was not very social, preferring to spend his time fishing, scuba diving and swimming.

Verena is the caregiver for her elderly mother and looks after the stay-at-home mother of Naveed and his younger sister, 22, and his 20-year-old brother.

The suburb of Bonnyrigg is home to a large immigrant population, with significant Chinese and Vietnamese communities.

Chaos broke out near his home on Sunday night as police raided the town.

The street was cordoned off and a helicopter buzzed overhead as dozens of officers swarmed his home.

Residents pleaded to cross the cordon and return to their homes, but were kept away as investigators tried to gather information about the mass shooter.

After being told to move, a group of men became aggressive towards officers, threatening the female officer and putting her hands in her handcuffs, the Daily Mail reported.

Credit: Sky News

The attack is being treated as a terrorist incident and is one of the deadliest acts of anti-Semitic violence in Australian history.

Video footage from the scene showed two men dressed in black rifles shooting towards the beach from a bridge over a nearby car park around 6.40pm on Sunday. While ambulances are arriving, police teams are taking intense security measures at the scene, while detective teams are entering and exiting under surveillance.

New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon appealed for calm, saying investigators were working through multiple lines of inquiry.

Israeli officials said they were investigating responsibility for the attack due to concerns that it may have been carried out by a foreign state or militant organizations. The attack comes amid rising tensions between Australia and Iran, following a series of suspected Iranian-directed attacks on Jewish targets in the country.

Australian officials have not publicly confirmed any foreign involvement. However, according to Israeli media reports, Israeli officials point to Iran as the primary suspect if a state actor is involved in the incident, while also investigating possible connections with groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.

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A senior Israeli security official told Israel Hayom that “Iran’s activities to launch attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world have increased in recent months,” adding that investigators believe the “direction and infrastructure” of the Bondi Beach attack emanated from Tehran.

An Israeli intelligence source cited by the newspaper said that the activities of Iran and its allies have “markedly increased” in recent months. Another Israeli official noted that Australia was among the affected countries, noting that the Australian government had previously taken action against the Iranian embassy. special intelligence alerts.

“There is no doubt that the direction and infrastructure of the attack originated in Tehran,” the official said.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned the attack as a “cruel attack on Jews.”

“At this very moment, our sisters and brothers in Sydney were attacked by treacherous terrorists,” he said. “We are extremely shocked and bereaved.”

Meanwhile, some supporters of the Iranian regime also celebrated the attack on social media. In one post, Naveed Akram was praised as “the hardest-working member of the 2000s generation to date.”

Iranian state media reported the attack using derogatory language; Tasnim news agency described the victims in terms similar to those used during recent conflicts between Israel and Iran.

Australia officially listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization last month. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese Iran expelled its ambassador in August and suspended Australia’s embassy operations in Tehran, accusing the Islamic Republic of recruiting criminals to carry out anti-Semitic attacks on Australian soil.

Australia’s intelligence chief, Mike Burgess, said in August that Iran was “lighting the matches and fueling the fire” of antisemitism in Australia.

He said Tehran carried out at least two arson attacks last year, including targeting a Melbourne synagogue and a Jewish restaurant in Sydney.

“Iran and its proxies are manipulating people in Australia to commit these crimes through a series of disruptions,” Mr Burgess said.

Lewis’s Continental Kitchen, a kosher cafe in Bondi, was the target of an arson attack in October last year. The Adass Israel synagogue in Ripponlea, south-east of Melbourne, was also attacked in December. No injuries were reported.

Mr. Albanese said it was likely that the Iranian government would launch further attacks against Jewish targets.

“These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression carried out on Australian soil by a foreign nation,” he said. “These were attempts to undermine social harmony and create disharmony in our society.”

Credit: Instagram/mian.ores – X

The expulsion of Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi marked the most serious diplomatic crisis between Australia and Iran since relations between the two countries were established in 1968. Australia also ordered embassy staff to leave Iran and advised citizens to leave if possible.

The Israeli foreign ministry confirmed that an Israeli citizen was among those killed in the Bondi Beach attack.

Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar called on Canberra to take action against what he described as a “senior act”. increase in antisemitism during a telephone conversation with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong.

“There has been an increase in anti-Semitism in Australia since October 7,” he said, calling on the government to take stronger action against incitement to violence.

Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the “violent attack” in Sydney on Sunday.

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a statement on the X channel, “We condemn the violent attack in Sydney, Australia. Terrorism and killing people are rejected and condemned wherever they occur.”

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