Bondi Hanukkah terrorist was teen preacher for Islamic group, follower of radical cleric

At 17, Naveed Akram was member of Street Dawah movement urging people to spread word of Islam; several members with ties to ISIS have been convicted on terror charges

SYDNEY, Australia — Standing in the rain outside a suburban Sydney train station, 17-year-old Naveed Akram stared into the camera and urged those watching to spread the word of Islam.

“Spread the message that Allah is One wherever you can… whether it be raining, hailing, or clear sky,” he said.

Another since-deleted video posted in 2019 by Street Dawah Movement, a Sydney-based Islamic community group that attempts to proselytize people outside train stations, showed him urging two young boys to pray more frequently.

Authorities are now trying to piece together what happened in the intervening six years that led a teenager volunteering to hand out pamphlets for a nonviolent community group to allegedly carry out Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades, killing 15 people and wounding dozens at a celebratory Jewish event marking the beginning of Hanukkah. Authorities have called it an antisemitic act of terrorism.

Akram was also a follower of radical Islamist cleric Wisam Haddad, counterterrorism officials told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Additionally, the shooter was pictured preaching with another outreach group, Dawah Van, which is linked to Haddad, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Earlier this year, a judge ruled Haddad’s lectures must be pulled from the internet due to their content vilifying Jews.

Haddad’s lawyer denied his client had any involvement in the terror attack.

Akram, who remains under heavy guard in hospital after being shot by police, was briefly investigated by Australia’s domestic intelligence agency in 2019 for links to individuals connected to the Islamic State terror group, but authorities found he did not have extremist tendencies at the time.

“In the years that followed, that changed,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on Tuesday.

Police have not formally identified Naveed Akram, 24, as one of the alleged terrorists who wreaked death and destruction at the Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondo Beach on Sunday. His father, Sajid Akram, 50, is the other terrorist, who was shot and killed by police, local media reported.

Officials have said Naveed Akram is in a critical condition in the hospital after being shot while carrying out the attack.

Motivated by Islamic State

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday that the terror attack was likely motivated by the ideology of Islamic State, but that the two men appeared to have acted alone.

Homemade ISIS flags were found in the suspects’ car after Sunday’s attack, and police said on Tuesday the pair had visited the Philippines last month, where offshoots of the terror group have a presence.

A spokesperson for the Philippines Bureau of Immigration said Naveed Akram, an Australian national, arrived in the country on November 1 with his father, who was traveling on an Indian passport.

Both reported Davao as their final destination, the main city on Mindanao island, which has a history of Islamist insurgency.

A months-long conflict on the island in 2017 between armed forces and two militant groups linked to IS left over a thousand dead and a million displaced, though the country’s military says these groups are now fragmented and weakened.

The pair left the Philippines on November 28, two weeks before Sunday’s attack.

‘Never did anything unusual’

Local media reported that Naveed Akram, an unemployed bricklayer, attended high school in Cabramatta, a suburb around 30 kilometers by road from Sydney’s central business district and close to the family’s current home in Bonnyrigg, which was raided by police after the attacks.

“I could have never imagined in 100 years that this could be his doing,” former classmate Steven Luong told The Daily Mail.

“He was a very nice person. He never did anything unusual. He never even interrupted in class.”

After leaving school, Akram showed a keen interest in Islam, seeking tutoring and attending several Street Dawah Movement events. The group confirmed he appeared in the videos.

“We at Street Dawah Movement are horrified by his actions and we are appalled by his criminal behaviour,” the group said in a statement, adding Akram had attended several events in 2019 but was not a member of the organization, describing him as a “visitor.”

Several other convicted terrorists with ties to Islamic State were also part of Street Dawah, The Sydney Morning Herald reported, naming Joseph Saadieh, Moudasser Taleb, and Youssef Uweinat.

Uweinat, who claimed to have renounced the terror group after serving four years in jail, was photographed waving a black Islamic State flag earlier this year at an anti-Israel rally in Sydney.

Months after the Street Dawah videos were posted, Akram approached tutor Adam Ismail seeking tuition in Arabic and the Quran, studying with him for a combined period of one year.

Ismail’s language institute posted a photo in 2022, since deleted, showing Akram smiling while holding a certificate in Quranic recitation.

“Not everyone who recites the Quran understands it or lives by its teachings, and sadly, this appears to be the case here,” Ismail said in a video statement late on Monday.

“I condemn this act of violence without hesitation.”

Earlier ties to Islamic State not proven

Two of the people he was associated with in 2019 were charged and went to jail, but Akram was not seen at that time to be a person of interest, Albanese said.

Akram’s journey from a teenager interested in Islam to alleged mass killer of Jews has taken not just the public but also law enforcement by surprise.

“We are very much working through the background of both persons,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters on Monday.

“At this stage, we know very little about them.”