Bondi Beach gunmen had bombs, ISIS flags and foreign links, police say

Australian authorities said on Tuesday that the father and son who opened fire on families during a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach had packed their vehicle with improvised explosive devices and homemade ISIS flags, fueling fears that the massacre was part of a wider attack plot than initially thought.

During a press conference, investigators called the father and son gunmen, aged 24 and 50, “cowards” who hunted down Jewish Australians “in broad daylight”. Fifteen people were killed and more than two dozen were injured in the shootings, which police are now formally describing as a Terrorist attack inspired by ISIS.

New South Wales Police confirmed the younger attacker’s vehicle contained IEDs and two homemade ISIS flags, evidence authorities said pointed directly to extremist inspiration and an apparent intention to carry out a larger, coordinated assault. Forensic teams are still conducting ballistic and chemical examinations of the items.

“This was a barbaric attack against Australian Jews,” Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said. “They were taken out in the day.”

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Authorities said they are still working to determine if the devices were functional or intended for secondary purposes.

Mal Lanyon, the Police Commissioner for the State of New South Wales, said that the suspects traveled Philippines last month. Their reasons for the trip and where they went in the Philippines will be investigated by investigators, Lanyon said.

The region has long been home to networks linked to ISIS. Muslim separatist militant groups, including Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines, have once expressed support for ISIS and have hosted small numbers of foreign militant fighters from Asia, the Middle East and Europe in the past.

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Decades of military offensives, however, have considerably weakened Abu Sayyaf and other such armed groups, and Philippine military and police officials say there have been no recent indications of foreign militants in the country’s south.

Officials said there is currently no evidence that additional attackers or facilitators were involved in Sunday’s massacre, but officials warned that this assessment could change as investigators examine digital devices, travel records and thousands of seized documents.

Tuesday marked the first time that officials confirmed their beliefs on the ideology of the suspects.

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There are more than two dozen people, aged from 10 to 87, who are still being treated in hospitals after Sunday’s massacre. Ten of them, including three patients at a children’s hospital, are in critical condition.

Among the wounded is Ahmed al Ahmed, 42 years old Owner of a fruit shop of Syrian origin who was captured on video tackling and disarming an assailant, before pointing the man’s weapon at him and then putting him on the ground. He had surgery scheduled Wednesday for gunshot wounds to his left shoulder and upper body.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who met Ahmed earlier, hailed him as “a true Australian hero”.

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“We are a brave country. Ahmed al Ahmed represents the best of our country. We will not allow this country to be divided. That is what the terrorists are looking for. We have to unite. We have to embrace, and we have to get through this,” Albanese added.

The older man was shot dead while his son was also being treated at a hospital on Tuesday.

Albanian and the leaders of some of the states of Australia have promised tighten the already tight gun of the country already tightened gun laws in what would be the most sweeping reform since a shooter killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania in 1996. Mass shootings in Australia have been rare.

Officials released more information as public questions and anger grew on the third day after the attack about how the suspects were able to plan and carry it out and whether Australian Jews were enough protected by growing anti-Semitism.

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Albanese announced plans to further restrict access to weapons, in part because it emerged the older suspect had amassed his cache of six guns legally.

“The suspected killers, in the way they allegedly coordinated their attack, appeared to have no regard for the age or ability of their victims,” ​​Barrett said. “You see the alleged murderers they were only interested in a search for a death account.”