THE Bondi Beach gunmen told family they were on a fishing trip before killing at least 15 people and wounding 42 at a Jewish Hanukkah festival.
Sajid Akram, 50, and son Naveed, 24, draped an Islamic State flag over the bonnet of their car before firing at a 1,000-strong crowd.
They had just returned to Sydney, Australia, from a month in the Philippines, a known breeding ground for Islamic extremism.
Unemployed bricklayer Naveed had been on the radar of spooks for six years.
He had been linked to an IS cell when an acquaintance was jailed for seven years for plotting an attack.
He had also been flagged for allegedly trying to access extremist material online.
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Despite those alarms, Naveed was allowed to live with his fruiterer dad Sajid, who had a licence for six guns some of which were used in Sunday’s attack.
Among the dead was a girl, ten, called Matilda who had been at a petting zoo minutes earlier.
The Australian government and Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) were yesterday facing difficult questions about whether they did enough to prevent the attack.
After returning from the Philippines the Akrams booked into a £45-a-night, short-term rental in Campsie, 12 miles from Bondi.
On Sunday afternoon Naveed phoned his mum Verena, Sajid’s wife, to calmly tell her they were heading for dinner after a fun day of watersports.
She said: “He rings me up and said, ‘Mum, I just went for a swim. I went scuba diving. We’re going . . . to eat now, and then this morningand we’re going to stay home now because it’s very hot’.”
Soon after the call ended, at 5.15pm, they left in a silver Hyundai and drove 30 minutes to Bondi.
At 6.40pm local time (7.40am UK time) they parked up and armed with a rifle and shotgun headed to a bridge over a car park where they began blasting at crowds at the Chanuka by the Sea event.
Cops shot and killed Sajid at the scene. Naveed was also shot and remains critical.
A pipe bomb found in their car was disarmed.
Verena said she had been told the gun pair were on a weekend fishing trip.
It (the Philippines) has become a well-trodden path for Islamic State through South East Asia
Aussie security source
She added of Aussie-born Naveed: “He doesn’t have a firearm. He doesn’t even go out. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t go to bad places. He’s a good boy.”
Pakistan-born Sajid arrived in Australia in 1998 on a student visa later changed to a resident return visa.
The family lived in Bonnyrigg 28 miles from Bondi. A neighbour said: “They were weird people. Not saying hello to anyone.”
A 2022 social media post showed Naveed had passed his Koran studies at Al-Murad Institute in Heckenberg, in western Sydney.
Australian intelligence are speaking to their Filipino counterparts.
A security source said: “There’s areas down there that are very dangerous with training camps and the like.
“It has become a well-trodden path for Islamic State through South East Asia.”
In the 1990s camps on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border were dismantled and fighters set up bases in the Philippines’ southern Mindanao region.
Deakin University terror expert Greg Barton said: “Things are very tight in Australia. Indonesia is on the ball in dealing with terrorism but the Philippines is a bit more messy.
“You can imagine (the Akrams) connecting with people who reaffirm their views without being detected.”
What the hell is going on? Why did that family have access to gun licences?
Neil Fergus, of global security firm Intelligent Risks
Aussie PM Anthony Albanese confirmed Naveed had been linked to a Sydney-based IS terror cell after a 2019 investigation.
However, he had been assessed as having no “ongoing threat of violence”.
Mr Albanese said ASIO had flagged Naveed because of his associations rather than a personal motivation.
Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said that despite the previous intelligence on the Akrams, there were no red flags of an attack at the event on Sunday.
Neil Fergus, of global security firm Intelligent Risks, said: “What the hell is going on? Why did that family have access to gun licences?
“And how did they get that IS paraphernalia? It could have been mailed to them but that had to be dealing with someone.”
Andrew Hastie, an MP for the opposition Liberal Party of Australia, said the attack was a “monumental failure” by government.
The UK’s chief rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis said his cousin and cousin’s wife had spent “15 terrifying minutes” under a Bondi doughnut stand “while people to their right and left were killed”.
Rabbi Mirvis said hate speech in the UK has “gone on for far too long”, and it must be made clear slogans such as “globalise the intifada” are unlawful.
Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones said “any chants designed to intimidate, call for violence, call for the murder of Jews, are totally unacceptable”.
PM Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged the Bondi Beach attack was not “isolated” and was part of a pattern of incidents focused on Jewish holy days.
His spokesman said there will be a “more visible security presence” at Hanukkah events.
FOUR members of an alleged far-left extremist group were last night arrested over a New Year’s Eve terror plot.
The FBI said the group, aged 24 to 41, planned to use improvised “backpack bombs” planted in multiple locations across Los Angeles.