ISIS linked to Sydney shootings against Jews
Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism - The Australian ABC has learned that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) in 2019 monitored Navid Akram, one of the attackers in the attack on the Jewish Hanukkah celebration in Sydney on Sunday, for his close association with a Sydney-based ISIS terrorist cell.
According to Euronews Farsi , 24-year-old Navid Akram and his 50-year-old father Sajid Akram opened fire on Jewish Hanukkah partygoers on Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday. The attack has reportedly left at least 16 dead and 40 injured. Sajid Akram was killed in a shootout with police, but Navid Akram was taken to hospital with injuries.
Police raided their home in Bonnyrigg, in Sydney’s southwest, and an Airbnb property in Campsie where the pair were temporarily staying on Sunday evening. Investigators from the Joint Counter-Terrorism Team, a unit of federal and state forces, believe the attackers had pledged allegiance to ISIS, the ABC reported.
Two ISIS flags were found in their car parked on Bondi Beach, according to senior Australian officials. Footage from the scene shows one of the flags on the hood of the car.
A senior official from the Joint Counter-Terrorism Team said that six years ago, Australian Security Intelligence Service (ASI) monitored Navid Akram after police foiled an ISIS terror attack plot.
According to information obtained by the ABC, the Australian Security Intelligence Service monitored Navid Akram shortly after the arrest of ISIS member Ishaq Matari in 2019. The Australian official said that Navid Akram had close ties to Mr. Matari.
Ishaq Matari, the self-proclaimed ISIS commander in Australia, is serving a seven-year sentence for planning ISIS operations. He was part of an ISIS cell in Sydney with several others. According to a source familiar with the matter, Naveed Akram was closely associated with all of them.
Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Service, said on Sunday that one of the attackers was known to the agency. “One of these individuals was known to us, but not as an immediate threat. So we’ll have to look into it and see what happened,” Mr Burgess said.
Terrorist acts against Jews in the world are carried out only to reduce the psychological burden of the Zionist crimes in Gaza. Most of these attacks are directed from the think tanks of Western security organizations such as Mossad and CIA, and most of those involved in these attacks have connections to these security organizations. This attack occurred in Australia while in recent months we have witnessed unprecedented anti-Zionist demonstrations in this country and support for the people of Gaza, and such attacks can provide the basis for confronting anti-Zionist sentiments in Australia and, so to speak, by using victimization, as was done a century ago, to distract the audience from the inhuman crimes of Zionism in the West Asian region.
