{"id":351326,"date":"2025-12-16T08:37:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T08:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351326\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T08:37:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T08:37:28","slug":"australian-police-say-bondi-beach-attackers-inspired-by-isil-crime-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351326\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian police say Bondi Beach attackers inspired by ISIL | Crime News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Investigators say the deadly Bondi Beach attack is being treated as \u2018terrorism\u2019 after evidence of ISIL influence found.<\/p>\n

Published On 16 Dec 202516 Dec 2025<\/p>\n

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The Australian police say the two men accused of carrying out a deadly shooting<\/a> at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney\u2019s Bondi Beach that killed 15 people were \u201cinspired\u201d by the ISIL (ISIS) group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Police also confirmed on Tuesday that they were investigating a trip<\/a> the two suspects undertook to the Philippines last month.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEarly indications point to a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State, allegedly committed by a father and son,\u201d Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said at a news conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the alleged actions of those who have aligned themselves with a terrorist organisation, not a religion,\u201d Barrett said, referring to ISIL.<\/p>\n

One of the alleged attackers, identified by police as 50-year-old Sajid Akram, was shot dead by police officers. His 24-year-old son, believed to have acted alongside him and named by local media as Naveed Akram, was also shot and remains in critical condition in hospital.<\/p>\n

Investigators say the father-son duo opened fire on hundreds of people<\/a> gathered at the beachside festival, carrying out the attack that lasted about 10 minutes at one of Australia\u2019s most popular tourist locations.<\/p>\n

Wayne Hay, reporting for Al Jazeera from Bondi Beach, said police confirmed that \u201ctwo Islamic State flags \u2013 homemade flags \u2013 were found in the gunmen\u2019s vehicle along with an improvised explosive device\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey also spoke about this trip that the pair had taken to the Philippines. A lot of speculation about that over the past 24 hours or so. They confirmed that they did go to the Philippines recently, but they are not clear yet as to the motive for that trip,\u201d Hay said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will, of course, form part of any ongoing investigation as to why they made that trip,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"MournersMourners gather at the Bondi Pavilion in memory of the victims of the shooting at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, December 15, 2025 [Saeed Khan\/AFP]<\/p>\n

New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters that the reason for the visit and where they visited in the Philippines \u201cis under investigation at the moment\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Philippine police said they are also investigating the matter.<\/p>\n

ISIL-linked armed groups are known to operate in parts of the Philippines, particularly in the country\u2019s south. While those groups have been significantly weakened in recent years, they continue to exist as smaller cells on the southern island of Mindanao.<\/p>\n

Their strength is far removed from the influence they once exerted, particularly during the 2017 siege of Marawi<\/a>, when ISIL fighters laid siege to the city, prompting months of heavy combat with government forces that killed more than 1,000 people.<\/p>\n

The Bondi Beach attack, which was the deadliest mass shooting in Australia in almost three decades, also left some 25 people injured, including several in critical condition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Investigators say the deadly Bondi Beach attack is being treated as \u2018terrorism\u2019 after evidence of ISIL influence found.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[77,64,63,48,28146,5315,193280,44,277,1158,11925],"class_list":{"0":"post-351326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-gun-violence","13":"tag-investigation","14":"tag-isil-isis","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-philippines","17":"tag-police","18":"tag-religion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}