SYDNEY — The alleged gunman in the deadly attack in Bondi Beach was charged with 15 counts of murder on Wednesday, as criticism mounted of the government’s failure to prevent the deadliest mass killing on Australian soil in nearly three decades.
Naveed Akram, 24, was charged with a total of 59 offenses — including committing a terrorist act — after regaining consciousness in the Sydney hospital where he remains under police guard. His father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram, was killed by police after the pair allegedly opened fire Sunday evening on a Hanukkah festival at the popular tourist spot in what authorities say was an “ISIS-inspired” terrorist attack.
The charges came as the first of the 15 killed were laid to rest Wednesday in emotional scenes at cemeteries and synagogues across the city.
But even as Jewish Australians began to bury their dead, their grief was laced with anger over what they said was the center-left Labor government’s inadequate response to a rising wave of antisemitism.
“We, as a Jewish community, have been abandoned and left alone by our government,” Josh Frydenberg, a former treasurer for the opposition conservative coalition, said near the site of the attack. “Our governments have failed every Australian when it comes to fighting hate and antisemitism.”
That anger was compounded by uncertainty over the lead-up to the atrocity.
Australian media have reported that Sajid and Naveed Akram traveled to the Philippines last month for “military-style training.” But Australian officials have so far refused to confirm that they received training there, saying only that the Akrams made the trip and that it is under investigation.
Authorities in the Philippines have also confirmed the trip but denied that the two men trained with local groups linked to the Islamic State.
Naveed Akram, an Australian-born citizen, had previously come to authorities’ attention. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said that the younger man was investigated by Australia’s security agency in 2019 for his “associations” with extremists but was deemed not to pose a risk at that time.
His father, an Indian immigrant, obtained a firearms license in 2023 and accumulated six firearms, four of which were used in the attack, authorities have said.
That timeline has raised questions over whether the elder Akram should have been awarded a license and whether there was a breakdown in information sharing between state and federal authorities.
“You’ve only got to look at the unfortunate loss of life and injuries to tell that clearly a mistake has been made,” Peter Moroney, a former detective in the New South Wales Police terrorism investigations squad, told The Washington Post.
“These types of incidents, they don’t just happen overnight,” he said. “There’s a degree of planning and preparation that would go into that and there’d be certainly some indicators.”
Other security experts cautioned against condemning the Australian Security Intelligence Organization — akin to the FBI in the United States — which investigated Naveed Akram six years ago.
“An assessment is a snapshot in time,” said John Coyne, director of national security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a Canberra think tank. “And that assessment held true for six years.”
The attack has also prompted swift action from state and federal authorities to enhance Australia’s already tight gun restrictions.
Earlier this week, Albanese convened an emergency meeting of state and federal leaders, who agreed to pass stronger gun control legislation nationwide. And on Wednesday, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said he would recall parliament in the state, where Sydney is, to do just that.
Islamic State flags were found in the gunmen’s car, authorities have said, underscoring the continued draw of the group six years after the fall of its self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
“It is an enduring brand that continues to inspire and motivate and mobilize,” said Lydia Khalil, program director of transnational challenges at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think tank.
Scores of Australians traveled to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS at its peak. After the fall of the caliphate in 2019, the threat of terrorism in Australia and other Western countries became “much more diverse and diffuse” but the threat from violent jihadist movements like the Islamic State never went away, Khalil said.
While recent high-profile incidents involving neo-Nazi groups have generated headlines in Australia, Jewish groups have maintained that the biggest threat to their safety was from Islamist terrorism, said Josh Roose, an expert on violent extremism at Deakin University in Melbourne.
“Every successful terrorist attack should be counted as a failure because there’s been a breakdown, even though it could be something as simple as missing intelligence,” he said. “Was this due to a systemic or structural failure, or is it just missing someone because they were so off the radar? That’s the question.”
The six years between the ASIO’s assessment of Naveed Akram and Sunday’s attack make him an “anomaly” compared to the recent general trend of younger perpetrators and quicker radicalizations, Coyne said.
That “dark” period poses troubling implications not only for Australia but also the U.S. and other Western countries which will now be wondering if they need to reassess hundreds, if not thousands, of people who were flagged more than a half-decade ago, he said.
“That’s the biggest hole,” said Moroney. “What happened in the last six years?”
If it is found that the Islamic State coordinated the attack, it could suggest something of a resurgence for the group, said Roose, citing a recent ISIS attack that killed three U.S. citizens in Syria.
“It’s quite possible that they are seeking to reassert themselves in the international domain through coordinated action,” he said.
Vinall reported from Seoul. Sammy Westfall in Manila also contributed to this report.
The post Alleged Bondi gunman charged with 59 offenses as first funerals held appeared first on Washington Post.
