Bondi shooter’s terror links revealed as police investigate manifesto

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Bondi Beach gunman Naveed Akram was a volunteer member of a street preaching group in Sydney’s west which has links to multiple Islamic State devotees, including self-declared martyrs and would-be soldiers, before he and his father carried out the country’s worst terror attack.

Police are investigating a trip taken by the pair to the Philippines in the weeks before the massacre, and how Sajid Akram legally secured high-powered weapons despite his son’s long-known links to extremist circles. Police sources also told this masthead the Akrams had prepared a manifesto before the massacre.

The father and son killed 15 people and injured dozens more when they used high-powered firearms to attack a crowd of Jewish families on Bondi Beach on Sunday.

Sajid, 50, was killed when police returned fire, while 24-year-old Naveed remains in hospital after waking up from a coma.

Police on Tuesday confirmed two homemade IS flags were found in the car at the scene of the massacre – along with improvised explosive devices.

Authorities are investigating why in November the father and son travelled to the Philippines, one of the few nations with an enduring Islamic State presence.

“The reasons why they went to the Philippines, and the purpose of that and where they went when they were there, is under investigation at the moment,” NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said the “early indications” from police investigations pointed to “a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State”.

“These are the alleged actions of those who have aligned themselves with a terrorist organisation, not a religion,” she said in Sydney.

According to multiple police sources, the father and son are believed to have documented their beliefs in a manifesto before Sunday’s attack. However, no physical copy was found at the beach.

The pair had used four guns – shotguns and bolt-action rifles – which Sajid had legally purchased after being granted a gun licence in 2023, Lanyon said.

The choice to approve Sajid’s gun ownership has raised more questions after it was revealed his son had been on the radar of counter-terror investigators as far back as 2019.

In July 2019, 20-year-old Isaac el Matari, the self-appointed IS commander in Australia, was arrested for plotting to carry out a terror attack in Sydney’s CBD. An associate and fellow ISIS sympathiser, 23-year-old Radwan Dakkak, was also charged.

Their arrests were part of extensive investigations into a suspected Sydney IS cell by the Joint NSW Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) which zeroed in on el Matari’s associates.

The day of the raids, Street Dawah Movement, a volunteer organisation which attempts to convert people to Islam outside western Sydney train stations, uploaded photographs of members preaching on the streets of Bankstown.

One of the smiling faces of interest to the JCTT was Naveed Akram. A video posted by Street Dawah Movement in May 2019 shows Akram speaking to a member of the group. The caption describes him as “our new brother”.

A second video from June 2019 shows a teenage Akram encouraging others to join the street-preaching group.

“Spread Dawah wherever you can. Spread the message that Allah is one wherever you can,” he says.

“Whether it be raining, hailing or clear sky, Allah will reward you for whatever actions you do in his cause … this will save you on the day of judgement.”

Ultimately, the JCTT did not consider Akram’s ties to the terror cell significant enough for a terror charge.

But there were other suspected Islamic State members in the orbit of both el Matari and Street Dawah. Joseph Saadieh, Moudasser Taleb and Youssef Uweinat have all been convicted of terrorism and tied to the group.

Saadieh was photographed with Street Dawah in September 2020 and March 2021. He was arrested three months later and sentenced in August this year for knowingly associating with a terrorist group in the NSW District Court.

Street Dawah on Tuesday denounced Naveed’s terror attack and denied he was a member, instead describing him as a “visitor”.

“We at Street Dawah Movement want to clarify to the public that Naveed Akram is not a member of the Street Dawah movement organisation and never has been and none of our members knew him personally,” it said in a statement posted on social media.

“He was a keen visitor to our volunteer Sunday community Muslim faith awareness programs in 2019 and volunteered to make a video with us and visited a few times.

“He was a 17yo man at that time of our interactions with him. He visited our program a few times and we as an organisation hadn’t had any contact with him since 2019.”

The organisation said it was “horrified” and “appalled” by the shooting and condemned Akram’s involvement.

Another convicted terrorist, Youssef Uweinat, has also been pictured with the group, appearing in photos alongside other members in 2019.

Uweinat was arrested later the same year and served almost four years in jail after he pleaded guilty to being a member of Islamic State and attempting to recruit minors to the terror organisation.

During his sentencing, Uweinat claimed to have renounced his membership of IS, but in August the ABC revealed he had been photographed waving the black flag associated with the terror organisation at a pro-Palestine protest on the Harbour Bridge this year.

Former Kings Cross bouncer Mohammad Ali Baryalei was also a member of Street Dawah until he travelled to Turkey, rose to a leadership position and helped almost half of Australia’s fighters enter Syria.

He was the most senior member of IS from Australia at the time of his death in Syria in 2014.

Naveed was pictured preaching on the streets of Sydney with another outreach program, called the Dawah Van, which was affiliated with Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown since their arrests.

The outreach program is linked to radical preacher Wissam Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, who vilified the Jewish community in online lectures, a court found this year.

Haddad has denied any involvement or knowledge of Naveed in a statement released to the ABC on Tuesday, and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing.

On Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said “the son first came to attention in October 2019” and was the subject of a six-month-long investigation.

“He was examined on the basis of being associated with others, and the assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,” Albanese said.

More coverage on the Bondi terror attack

• Bondi shooter held gun licence: The prime minister will propose strengthening Australian gun laws
• Who are the alleged Bondi gunmen? On Sunday morning, father and son shooters told family they were going fishing
• Bondi hero Ahmed ‘in good spirits’: Ahmed al Ahmed, father of two young girls, is in hospital recovering from gunshot wounds
• The victims: 10-year-old Matilda is the youngest victim. What we know about the Bondi terror victims so far

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