The attack on a Jewish celebration in Sydney was motivated by “Islamic State ideology,” Australia’s prime minister said on Tuesday as investigators probed whether a visit to the southern Philippines last month by the two suspected gunmen had any connection to the mass shooting.
The police found two homemade Islamic State flags in the car that the suspects, a 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son, drove to the site of the massacre on Sunday, investigators said. The authorities also recovered improvised explosive devices in the car.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the two men appeared to be acting alone and described the shooting as a “meticulous, calculated, coldblooded attack.”
“It would appear that this was motivated by Islamic State ideology,” he said. On Monday, Mr. Albanese said there was no evidence that the gunmen were “part of a cell.”
The attack on the Hanukkah celebration was Australia’s worst mass shooting in three decades, killing 15 people and wounding dozens. It has led to debates and recriminations about whether the country has been vigilant enough about extremism and antisemitism in particular.
Officials in Australia and India released more information on Tuesday about the gunmen.
The older gunman, Sajid Akram, was an Indian citizen from Hyderabad, in southern India, who moved to Australia in 1998 in search of a job, according to a statement released on Tuesday by the police in the southern Indian state of Telangana. The statement said that he had married in Australia, where he had two children who are Australian citizens: a son, Naveed, and a daughter.
Sajid Akram was shot and killed by police at the scene of the shooting. Naveed Akram was injured.
Sajid Akram’s relatives in India told the police that he had rarely been in touch with them, visiting six times since his departure, the statement said, adding that Mr. Akram did not have a criminal record.
Australian officials said the reasons for a nearly monthlong trip by the father and son to the southern Philippines last month were being investigated.
Philippine authorities have battled Islamist militant groups for decades in the country’s southernmost islands, including some with ties to the Islamic State.
The Philippine Bureau of Immigration said the men arrived in the country together on Nov. 1, reporting their final destination as Davao, a city considered the gateway to the south of the country. The two men left the country on Nov. 28.
Officials previously said that Naveed Akram had come to the authorities’ attention in 2019, but that it was determined he did not pose an immediate threat. His father was also interviewed at the time, officials said.
The Australian news media has reported, citing unnamed police sources, that the 2019 investigation was over Naveed Akram’s links to Isaac El Matari, a self-proclaimed Islamic State commander based in Sydney who was convicted of plotting a terrorist attack. Mr. El Matari was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2021.
The shooting occurred despite Australia’s relatively strict gun control laws, many of which were enacted after a 1996 massacre that killed 35 people. Even so, Sajid Akram was a licensed holder of six firearms that were registered to him legally, according to the authorities.
Australian leaders are now discussing whether they need even stricter gun laws; among the proposals under consideration, according to the prime minister’s office, is the use of “criminal intelligence” in the process of evaluating gun license applications.
Those killed in Sunday’s attacked ranged in age from 10 to 87. They included Alex Kleytman, a Holocaust survivor who was attending the event with his two children and 11 grandchildren and who died shielding his wife, according to Chabad, a global Jewish organization with a presence in Sydney.
Eli Schlanger, a long-serving rabbi of the Jewish community in Sydney, was among the dead, as was Dan Elkayam, a French citizen celebrating Hanukkah in Australia.
Peter Meagher, a retired police officer and freelance photographer, was killed. The youngest victim was a girl named Matilda.
Short but dramatic video emerged on Tuesday of a couple that tried to stop one of the gunmen.
Boris and Sofia Gurman were on Campbell Parade, a road near Bondi Beach, when Sajid Akram, the older gunman, emerged from a silver car parked close to a footbridge leading to the beach. One of the ISIS flags could be seen on the windshield.
The couple confronted Mr. Akram, according to dash cam footage of the moment that was captured by a passing car and verified by The New York Times.
Mr. Gurman, 69, grappled with Mr. Akram, wresting what appears to be a firearm from him and knocking him to the ground. With his wife beside him, Mr. Gurman then faced off with Mr. Akram as bystanders took shelter at a nearby bus stop.
The attempt to disarm the gunman was similar to the intervention by Ahmed el Ahmed, a bystander who tackled Mr. Akram, an act of bravery also captured on video which was widely circulated after the massacre. Mr. el Ahmed, who was injured, was waiting on Tuesday to undergo surgery.
The Gurmans, however, were killed. The exact circumstances of their deaths was not clear, but later videos showed a man and woman lying motionless on the ground.
Mr. Gurman was a retired mechanic and Ms. Gurman worked for the Australian postal service, according to a statement from the family published in the Australian news media. They were of Russian Jewish heritage, according to the Australian news media.
“They were the heart of our family,” the statement said, adding that the video showed them “courageously attempting to disarm an attacker in an effort to protect others.”
“While nothing can lessen the pain of losing Boris and Sofia, we feel an overwhelming sense of pride in their bravery and selflessness,” the statement said.
Even though the prime minister said that the Akrams did not appear to have belonged to a terror cell, many terrorist attacks have been carried out in recent years by people who said they were inspired by Islamic State ideology. .
This past New Year’s Day, a U.S. Army veteran with an ISIS flag in his pickup truck drove into crowds and then opened fire on Bourbon street in New Orleans, killing 14 people. In August 2024, a Syrian man seeking asylum in Germany killed three people in a knife attack in the city of Solingen. Investigators said he had taken an oath to the Islamic State.
The Islamic State traces its roots to Al Qaeda in Iraq and for years ruled large parts of Syria and Iraq, brutally enforcing its strict interpretation of Islamic law. The group suffered major defeats in 2017 and was greatly diminished.
But remnants remain at large in the remote desert of eastern Syria, as well as online. President Trump on Saturday vowed to retaliate against the Islamic State after an attack in Syria killed two U.S. Army soldiers and a civilian U.S. interpreter.
Victoria Kim is the Australia correspondent for The New York Times, based in Sydney, covering Australia, New Zealand and the broader Pacific region.
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