MELBOURNE: An mass shooting in which 15 people were killed during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach was “a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State,” Australia’s federal police commissioner Krissy Barrett said Tuesday.
The suspects were a father and son, aged 50 and 24, authorities have said. The older man was shot dead while his son was being treated at a hospital on Tuesday.
A news conference by political and law enforcement leaders on Tuesday was the first time officials had confirmed their beliefs about the suspects' ideologies.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the remarks were based on evidence obtained, including “the presence of Islamic State flags in the vehicle that has been seized.”
Australian police said that the vehicle used by the father-and-son Bondi Beach gunmen contained two Islamic State flags as well as bombs.
The vehicle found near the Sydney beach was registered to the son, and it contained "two homemade ISIS flags" in addition to improvised explosive devices, New South Wales Police commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters.
There are 25 people still being treated in hospitals after Sunday’s massacre, 10 of them in critical condition. Three of them are patients in a children's hospital.
Those killed ranged in age from 10 to 87 years old. They were attending a Hanukkah event at Australia's most famous beach Sunday when the gunshots rang out.
Albanese and the leaders of some of Australia's states have pledged to tighten the country's already strict gun laws in what would be the most sweeping reforms since a shooter killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania in 1996. Mass shootings in Australia have since been rare.