Bondi Beach gunmen in Philippines for ‘military-style training’ weeks before attack

From the Telegraph

The father and son gunmen behind the mass shooting at Bondi Beach travelled to the Philippines last month for “military-style training”, officials said.

Naveed and Sajid Akram, who killed 15 people when they opened fire in Sydney on Sunday, landed in the Philippines on Nov 1, according to Australian and Philippine officials.

They stayed in the country for four weeks, leaving on Nov 28, with their final destination listed as Davao, a city in the southern island of Mindanao, according to the Philippines Immigration Bureau.

Mindanao, the second-largest island in the Philippines, has been a hotspot for Islamist militants since the 1990s.

A counter-terrorism official told Australia’s ABC News that the pair underwent militant training in Asia and investigators were looking into their ties to an international jihadist network.

The pair drove to the city of Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines and visited the Muslim-majority town of Marawi a few days later.

Investigators had reportedly obtained the father and son’s SIM cards and credit cards and were using them to trace their movements overseas.

The revelations raise further questions over Australia’s counter-terrorism and border security systems, as the men were not subject to active monitoring despite one having previously come to the attention of intelligence agencies. Overseas travel to known militant hotspots by a person with known extremist links would ordinarily trigger alarm bells if the person was being properly monitored.

Mal Lanyon, the New South Wales police commissioner, said on Tuesday: “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.”

Police found two homemade Islamic State flags in Naveed’s car along with two incendiary explosive devices (IEDs), Mr Lanyon said. Sajid, who was killed by police, had travelled to the Philippines on an Indian passport while Naveed used an Australian passport.

Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, said on Tuesday that the attack was probably motivated by the ideology of the Islamic State, but that the two men appeared to have acted alone.

Videos have emerged of the younger gunman preaching about Islam outside train stations in the suburbs of Sydney. “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 the Street Dawah Movement, a Sydney-based Islamic community group, shows him urging two young boys to pray more frequently.

Naveed has been linked to Wisam Haddad, a “spiritual leader” of the Islamic State, and Youssef Uweinat, a convicted youth recruiter for the terror group, according to the ABC.