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

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

At a news conference, investigators called the father and son gunmen, aged 24 and 50, “cowards” who hunted Australian Jews “in broad daylight.” Fifteen people were killed and more than two dozen injured in the shooting, which police are now officially calling an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack.

New South Wales police confirmed the young attacker’s vehicle contained improvised explosive devices and two homemade IS flags, evidence authorities say directly indicates extremist inspiration and an apparent intention to carry out a larger, coordinated attack. Forensic teams are still carrying out ballistic and chemical examinations of the objects.

“This is a barbaric attack on Australian Jews,” said Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett. “They were chased in broad daylight.”

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Authorities said they were still working to determine whether the devices were functional or intended for secondary targets.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon and Minister for Policing and Counter-Terrorism Yasmin Catley, attend a press conference during a visit to NSW Police Headquarters, following a fatal shooting at a holiday celebration Jewish woman at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, on December 16, 2025. (Reuters/Hollie Adams)

New South Wales state police commissioner Mal Lanyon said the suspects traveled to the Philippines last month. Their reasons for traveling 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 previously expressed support for ISIS and have in the past hosted small numbers of foreign militant fighters from Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

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

A woman kneels and prays at a flower-filled memorial to victims of the shooting outside Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Monday, December 15, 2025, a day after a shooting. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

Officials said there was currently no evidence that other attackers or facilitators were involved in Sunday’s massacre, but they cautioned that assessment could change as investigators examine digital devices, travel records and thousands of documents seized.

Tuesday was the first time officials confirmed their beliefs about the suspects’ ideologies.

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More than twenty people, aged 10 to 87, 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 injured was Ahmed al Ahmed, a 42-year-old fruit trader of Syrian origin, who was filmed tackling and disarming an attacker, before pointing the man’s gun at him and putting it on the ground. He underwent surgery Wednesday for gunshot wounds to his left shoulder and upper body.

People gather around a tribute to the shooting victims outside the Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Monday December 15, 2025, one day after the shooting. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

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

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“We are a courageous country. Ahmed al Ahmed represents the best of our country. We will not allow this country to be divided. That is what terrorists seek. We will unite. We will embrace each other and we will overcome this,” Albanese added.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attend a press conference at NSW Police headquarters following a fatal shooting at a Jewish holiday celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, December 16, 2025. (Reuters/Hollie Adams)

The older gunman was shot while his son was also being treated at the hospital on Tuesday.

Albanese and some Australian state leaders have pledged to strengthen the country’s already strict 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 since become rare.

Officials released more information as public questions and anger grew on the third day after the attack over how the suspects may have planned and carried it out and whether Australian Jews had been adequately protected from rising anti-Semitism.

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

“The alleged murderers, callous in the manner in which they allegedly coordinated their attack, appeared to have no respect for the age or abilities of their victims,” Barrett said. “It appears the alleged killers were only interested in tracking down a body count.”