According to an expert, Australia’s intelligence agency overlooked crucial information regarding the alleged gunmen linked to the Bondi Beach attack.
Naveed Akram, aged 24, and his father, Sajid, purportedly launched an assault on a Hanukkah gathering near the famous beach on December 14.
Naveed now faces 59 charges, including terrorism and 15 counts of murder, while his father was fatally shot by police during the incident.
In a tragic span of just over six minutes, 15 innocent lives were lost, including 10-year-old Matilda and 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, Alex Kleytman.
Michael Shoebridge, head of the defense and security think tank Strategic Analysis Australia, indicated that there were evident signs that Naveed and Sajid Akram should have caught the attention of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
“Looking back, things seem clearer, but there were definitely red flags that should have been noted,” Shoebridge remarked to the Daily Mail.
‘The combination of the rapid buying of multiple firearms and a son who is allegedly associated with an Islamic State terror cell, along with travel to the southern Philippines, doesn’t look like a really intricate jigsaw to follow up on.’
‘It’s, at least, enough for a knock on the door.’
Australia’s top spy agency ASIO failed to spot three key data points before the Bondi Beach attack in December (pictured, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess with Anthony Albanese)
During the attack on a Hanukkah event in December, fifteen innocent people were killed, among them 10-year-old Matilda and 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, Alex Kleytman
It’s believed ASIO informed NSW police in 2021 that Naveed allegedly met several Islamic extremists through street preaching groups.
ASIO placed Naveed on a ‘known entity’ list rather than an active watch list, which would have kept him under surveillance.
Sajid applied for his firearms licence in June 2020, but it wasn’t issued until July 2023.
On a Thursday night that same month, soon after the 28-day statutory cooling-off period for his gun licence ended, Sajid bought three Category B guns.
Those firearms were a lever release shotgun with a five-round capacity, used for quicker shooting, and two identical straight-pull centrefire rifles, which use high-calibre ammunition.
Under the national firearm agreement, the purchase of several identical guns should have triggered an investigation.
In addition, the father and son spent nearly a month in Davao City, on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, which is known as a magnet for Muslim terrorist groups.
Australian Federal Police said travel records showed the pair rarely left their hotel, and there is no evidence they received training or prepared logistics for the alleged attack. But Mr Shoebridge said the visit alone should have raised alarms.
Expert Michael Shoebridge said alleged gunman Naveed Akram (pictured) didn’t need 24/7 surveillance but his alleged meetings with extremists should have been a red flag
‘I’m not talking about “Why weren’t they under 24/7 surveillance?” I’m just saying those three data points should have flagged them as people of interest,’ he said.
‘ASIO doesn’t need to do full-time monitoring to have a system that flags travel to notorious terrorist hotspots and connects that to firearms purchases and association with Islamic State cells.
‘These are three points that don’t need to come from 24/7, following them around.’
A root cause of the issue, according to Mr Shoebridge, is that ‘counterterrorism has drifted down intelligence agencies’ priority lists’.
This was due to increasing emphasis on foreign interference, counter-espionage, cybercrime, and cybersecurity, he believes.
‘I’m not sure that you get that same relentless search for new phenomenon and (study of) all the indicators,’ he said, adding that resources will also be limited.
The defence expert highlighted that there are five key areas where ASIO can be improved to protect Australians in the future.
‘They need to resurrect counterterrorism as a real priority, and not just one on a list,’ he said.
Mr Shoebridge (pictured) said ASIO needs to prioritise counterterrorism more
‘They need to put more of their best and brightest on counterterrorism.’
Mr Shoebridge added that ASIO’s attention has been misdirected towards social issues rather than core security concerns.
‘There’s been a lot of focus from ASIO leadership on social cohesion, like public speeches from the director about protests being a way of letting off steam and common commentary about social cohesion,’ he said.
‘I think ASIO needs to stick to their knitting, and that means finding and spoiling terrorist and espionage plots. Everything else is not their job.’
Despite this, he said he held some sympathy for ASIO chief Mike Burgess because he has been ‘left to be the government voice on counter-terrorism and extremism’ – and the government needs to be the voice on security in the future.
‘It’s the Prime Minister and Cabinet ministers’ jobs to talk to the public about these issues,’ he said.
‘But they have been reluctant to speak clearly or frankly, and so Mr Burgess has had to fill in the gap.’
He added that a final issue is that ASIO and the government are not omniscient in situations, but flawed and hampered by bureaucracy.
‘We speak as though the government and intelligence agencies are all-seeing and all-knowing,’ he said.
‘They’ve got a bunch of clunky, disparate data sets across agencies, and then there’s state and federal boundaries, and the sharing isn’t always easy, simple or effective.
‘But, really, I think there are enough flags here, and they’re not particularly novel.’
