OAN Staff Cory Hawkins
3:11 PM – Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Australian authorities have disclosed that the Islamist father-and-son duo, responsible for the horrific antisemitic attack near Bondi Beach in Sydney on Sunday, traveled to the Philippines just weeks prior to the incident.
Investigators are still looking into the months leading up to Sunday’s attack, when two terrorist suspects — Sajid Akram, 50, and his son, Naveed Akram, 24 — fired shots into a crowd of people attending a Hanukkah event.
Only two police officers were on duty at the Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, a senior official said Tuesday, according to the Times of Israel.
The violent shooting, which left 15 innocents dead, including a 10-year-old girl and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, has already left a lasting impact on Sydney’s Jewish community.
New South Wales (NSW) Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon reported that both father and son had traveled to the Philippines in November, adding that investigators are still looking into why the duo took the trip and where exactly they went.
The Police Commissioner is the head of the NSW Police Force and reports to the Minister for Police and Counter-terrorism.
Australian police are also investigating possible links to military-style training or extremist groups in the Philippines, such as in Mindanao, which has been described as a hotspot for Islamist insurgents.
The two suspects spent nearly all of November — from November 1st to 28th — in the Philippines, declaring Davao as their final destination. The southern regions of the country, including Mindanao where Davao is located, remain a stronghold for Muslim separatist groups, some of which have pledged allegiance to or publicly supported ISIS.
Australian authorities stated that a vehicle registered to the Islamist son contained explosive devices and two flags associated with ISIS.
Sajid, the 50-year-old father, is Indian and he was born and raised in Hyderabad, Telangana, India, where he lived in a Muslim neighborhood, Tolichowki. He migrated to Australia back in 1998 and held Indian citizenship, traveling on an Indian passport. Naveed, the 24-year-old son, is Australian — born in Australia following his father’s migration, holding Australian citizenship.
Australian officials also confirmed on Monday that Naveed had been under investigation for six months in 2019 over “suspected links” to a Sydney-based “terror cell.”
ABC Australia reported that he also had contact with Jihadist “spiritual leader” Wisam Haddad. Haddad has a history of pro-ISIS views, antisemitic “hate preaching,” and ties to convicted recruiters. He was convicted in related matters for vilifying Jews and converting/recruiting young people to extremism.
Nonetheless, the nation’s primary spy agency later claimed that Naveed was of no threat.
“This type of terrorism has been, the elements of that, have been present in Australia for a long time, and our agencies spend a lot of time keeping an eye on them, but it’s hard to track every single person,” said Malcom Turnbull, who was Australian prime minister from 2015 to 2018.
“Certainly, it’s a very big question: Why does somebody living in the suburbs of Sydney need six long arms, as he [Sajid Akram] had, even though they were licensed? Second question is, why were they licensed to a man who had a son who had been on an ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organization] watchlist because of links to ISIS-related entities? … And that trip to the Philippines raises another question: Why were they there? And so, you know, this gets back to the problem that I think we face all around the world, is databases talking to each other? Are we actually putting all the dots together in time?”
More than 25 survivors are still receiving care in several Sydney hospitals, officials said.
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