'Islamic State ideology' drove beach gunmen

AUSTRALIAN PM:

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A Hanukkah menorah is projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House in memory of the victims of a shooting at Bondi Beach, in Sydney. A father and son opened fire on a Jewish festival at Australia's Bondi Beach in a shooting spree that killed 15 people, including a child, authorities said on December 15, denouncing the attack as antisemitic "terrorism".

(AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE)

A father and son were driven by “Islamic State ideology” when they fired on crowds at Bondi Beach in one of Australia’s deadliest mass shootings, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday.

Sajid Akram and his son Naveed opened fire on people thronging the famous beach for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah on Sunday evening, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more.

Authorities said the attack was designed to sow panic among the nation’s Jews, but have so far given little detail about the gunmen’s deeper motivations.

Albanese gave one of the first hints that the pair had been radicalized by an “ideology of hate.”

“It would appear that this was motivated by Islamic State ideology,” Albanese told national broadcaster ABC.

“With the rise of ISIS more than a decade ago now, the world has been grappling with extremism and this hateful ideology,” he said in a separate interview, using another name for the Islamic State group.

The pair travelled to the Philippines before the shootings and authorities are investigating whether they met Islamist extremists during the trip, Australian media reported.