The Wall Street Journal reports that Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, is assisting the investigation into the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed Tuesday appears to be driven by Islamic State ideology, marking the nation's deadliest mass shooting in almost thirty years.
A source familiar with the situation told the publication that Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, is aiding the probe, which is a standard procedure for the agency regarding terrorist attacks against Jews abroad.
In August 2025, Australia identified the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as the mastermind behind fires at a Sydney kosher restaurant and a Melbourne synagogue. "These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil," Albanese declared during a press briefing at the time.
Iranian Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi and three diplomatic staff were subsequently told they had one week to leave, a move unprecedented since World War II. Australia has also suspended its embassy operations in Iran to ensure staff safety and issued a travel warning for citizens to depart Iran promptly.
"They have sought to harm and terrify Jewish Australians and to sow hatred and division in our community," Albanese said at the time. Intelligence agency ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess detailed the IRGC's use of a sophisticated proxy network. "This was directed by the IRGC through a series of overseas cut-out facilitators to coordinators that found their way to tasking Australians," he stated.
Simultaneously, the Mossad revealed in October that Tehran was responsible for major thwarted attack attempts in 2024-2025 in Australia, Greece, and Germany.
Since October 7, Iran has significantly expanded its efforts to strike Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide. Through intensive Mossad activity together with intelligence and security agencies in Israel and abroad, dozens of attack attempts that Iran had advanced have been thwarted. These prevention operations saved many lives and enabled investigative and legal action against those involved in terror.
The extensive investigation efforts led to the exposure of key terror orchestrators in the Iranian regime who head the terror mechanisms, to the exposure of the operational methods they employ to advance attacks against innocent people, and to exacting a significant price from Iran in the diplomatic arena.
Israel named an IRGC figure named Ammar as a senior commander in the Revolutionary Guards who heads Unit 11,000 under the command of Esmail Qaani, commander of Quds Force. Under his command, a significant mechanism was established to advance attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets in Israel and beyond. This apparatus is directly responsible for the attempted attacks that were exposed in Greece, Australia, and Germany just in the past year. His many failures led to a wave of arrests and his public exposure.
Following the increase in Iranian terror activity and the arrests of Sardar Ammar's cell members, law enforcement authorities in Australia and Germany took sharp policy steps against senior Iranian officials.
At a recent conference, former Mossad Director Yossi Cohen revealed cases where the Mossad under his watch shared life-saving intelligence, including with Australia. "We gave the Australians probably one of the most critical intelligence items, which saved hundreds of lives, when a bomb was en route to an Etihad aircraft scheduled to depart Sydney for Dubai or Abu Dhabi. This was our intelligence, and what do we receive back from Australia?" Cohen asked, referring to Canberra's recognition of a Palestinian state.
"It would appear that this was motivated by Islamic State ideology," Albanese said Tuesday. "The ideology that has been around for more than a decade that led to this ideology of hate and, in this case, a preparedness to engage in mass murder."
According to The Wall Street Journal, police publicly identified the 50-year-old suspect, who died at the scene Sunday, as Sajid Akram for the first time on Tuesday, while Australian officials have not yet named his son, who remains in the hospital.
Law enforcement stated they were analyzing a trip the pair took to the Philippines last month as part of the inquiry, while authorities in Manila reported finding no conclusive proof the men connected with terror groups or received training there.
The Philippine immigration bureau recorded that the two individuals landed in the nation from Sydney on Nov. 1 and departed on Nov. 28, identifying the father as an Indian citizen residing in Australia and his son as Naveed Akram, an Australian citizen.
WSJ notes that both men listed Davao, located on the southern island of Mindanao, as their intended destination, and their return trip to Sydney originated from that city, according to immigration records.
For decades, the southern Philippines hosted various violent Islamist insurgent factions, most notably the Abu Sayyaf Group, which is infamous for a lethal ferry bombing and its involvement in the deadly 2017 Marawi siege, where many local terrorists forged ties with the Islamic State.
However, in recent years, Manila has claimed success in suppressing Islamist rebellions, a change from the era when the south was viewed as a haven for groups capable of instructing foreigners in the use of firearms and IEDs.
While Australian police found no indication that anyone beyond the two shooters participated in Sunday's violence, investigations remain active, and Albanese noted Australia is reaching out to international partners "to see precisely if there are any links there," according to the report.
Australia's domestic intelligence service had previously monitored the son for six months commencing in October 2019 due to his associations with two individuals who were subsequently imprisoned, yet the prime minister stated Monday that the agency found no proof he was radicalized or plotting violent or antisemitic acts, nor was he on a watchlist.
Albanese added that the father also underwent questioning during that inquiry. According to The Wall Street Journal, the prime minister characterized the Sunday assault, where two gunmen opened fire from a footbridge onto a gathering for the first night of Hanukkah, as a premeditated act.
"That they hired a place in Campsie to essentially stage this terrorist act in Bondi – clearly it was well planned," Albanese said. "They clearly had thought through the positioning of where they would be on that bridge to give them a higher position than the people that they were seeking to harm."
Police in India confirmed in a Tuesday announcement that Akram originated from Hyderabad and emigrated to Australia for employment in 1998, where he married and settled, fathering a daughter and Naveed, both born in Australia.
The statement noted that Akram remained an Indian citizen at the time of his death, had maintained minimal contact with his relatives in India through only six visits since leaving, and that police held no "adverse record" on him from his time living there.
Last August, Australia elevated its national terrorism alert level to probable, implying officials estimated a likelihood exceeding 50% of an attack occurring or being plotted on domestic soil within the year, citing extremism among youth turning to racially or religiously motivated violence with little warning.
Earlier in 2024, authorities alleged a religiously driven terrorist attack occurred when a teenager stabbed a Christian leader during a live-streamed service in Sydney's western suburbs.
The Wall Street Journal recalls that in late 2014, a self-identified Shiite cleric held people hostage at gunpoint in a cafe near the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, forcing them to display an Islamic banner in the window; two captives were killed in the siege.
