A father and son were driven by "ISIL ideology" when they fired on crowds at Bondi Beach in one of Australia's deadliest mass shootings, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Tuesday.
Sajid Akram and his son Naveed opened fire on people thronging the famous beach for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah on Dec. 14 evening, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more.
Authorities said the attack was designed to sow panic among the nation's Jews, but have so far given little detail about the gunmen's deeper motivations.
Albanese gave one of the first hints that the pair had been radicalized by an "ideology of hate."
"It would appear that this was motivated by ISIL ideology," Albanese told national broadcaster ABC.
"With the rise of ISIL more than a decade ago now, the world has been grappling with extremism and this hateful ideology," he said in a separate interview.
The pair traveled to the Philippines before the shootings and authorities are investigating whether they met Islamist extremists during the trip, Australian media reported.
Manila's immigration department confirmed to AFP that the pair spent almost all of November in the Philippines, with their final destination listed as Davao.
The province, on the southern island of Mindanao, has a long history of Islamist insurgencies against central government rule.
Immigration records listed Sajid as an Indian national and his son as an Australian citizen, spokeswoman Dana Sandoval said.
Police found a car registered to Naveed Akram parked near the beach in the aftermath of the shooting, in which they found improvised bombs and "two homemade ISIL flags," New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said.
Carrying long-barreled guns, the duo peppered the beach and a nearby park with bullets for 10 minutes before police shot and killed 50-year-old Sajid.
Naveed, 24, remains in a coma in hospital under police guard.
