Mass shooting at Sydney beach, mass shooting at Brown University [scroll down for UPDATES]
Two gunmen opened fire on a crowd at Sydney’s Bondi Beach celebrating the beginning of Chanukah, killing an unknown number of people (presently reported as sixteen) and wounding many more. This is the embodiment of “globalize the intifada.”
One of the gunmen was killed by police and the other wounded and taken into custody, but they had free rein for many minutes before they were taken down. It’s not hard to guess at the background of the shooters, only one of whom has been officially named so far:
One of the gunmen who opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach has been named as Naveed Akram. …
The 24-year-old suspect, who was shot dead by police, was a bricklayer who had recently been laid off. …
Social media posts from an Islamic centre in Australia show Akram completed religious studies in 2022, raising questions about possible radicalisation and extremist networks operating in the country. Adam Ismail, the head of the Al-Murad Islamic Institute, where Akram studied, declined to comment when contacted by The Telegraph. …
Israeli authorities said they were examining responsibility for the attack amid concerns it may have been orchestrated by a foreign state or militant organisations. The shooting occurred against a backdrop of escalating tensions between Australia and Iran, following a series of suspected Iranian-directed attacks on Jewish targets in the country.
Note what’s missing: Akram’s country of origin (I’ve read Pakistan, but just as a rumor), was he a citizen or not, and what were his ties to the other shooter (I’ve read a rumor he was from Lebanon, but have read nothing official)? How did they obtain their weapons in a country like Australia, which has very strict gun control (I have no doubt criminals and terrorists can do it)? Why did it take so long for police to shoot the perps? What was the police presence at this event, an outdoor Jewish celebration that would obviously leave people highly vulnerable?
And then there’s the Brown University shooting, which we know even less about although it occurred slightly earlier. Two students were killed and about nine injured, and a “person of interest” is in custody. The police are being very tight-lipped, but there’s this:
At approximately 4:05 p.m. EST on December 13, 2025, a shooting occurred inside Room 166 on the first floor of the Brown University School of Engineering’s Barus and Holley Building, which also houses the university’s physics department and MacMillan Hall. The room had a capacity of 186 people according to Brown University’s website. At the time of the shooting, a review session for an introductory economics class was being held by a teaching assistant for Teaching Professor of Economics Rachel Friedberg.The building was unlocked, since it was the second day of the school’s final examinations for the fall semester.
Who is Rachel Friedberg, and what kind of economics does she teach? This kind:
Her research centers on the economic outcomes of immigrants in the United States and Israel, and on immigration’s impact on the labor market of the receiving country. She has testified before the U.S. Congress and participated in Israeli Knesset committee deliberations on immigration policy and reform. A faculty affiliate of the Program in Judaic Studies, she is currently studying the demography and economics of the American Jewish community.
I suppose all of this could be a coincidence. But I would bet not.
One bright spot is that the Bondi attack featured a hero named Ahmed al Ahmed:
Video verified by the BBC showed Mr Ahmed run at the gunman and seize his weapon, before turning the gun round on him, forcing his retreat.
Mr Ahmed, a fruit shop owner and father of two, remains in hospital, where he has undergone surgery for bullet wounds to his arm and hand, his family told 7News Australia.
RIP to the victims.
UPDATE 4 PM:
The Sydney shooters were father and son:
New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon says that they believe there were only two shooters involved — a father and son who are ages 50 and 24.
The father was a licensed gun owner, Lanyon says at a press conference, saying that they believe all his firearms have been recovered.
The father has been killed and his son, earlier identified as Naveed Akram, 24, is “in critical but stable condition,” Lanyon says.
I know that gun ownership is extremely restricted in Australia. How was this guy a licensed gun owner? Seems very odd.
UPDATE 4:20 PM:
Footage of Ahmed al Ahmed wrestling the gun away can be found here. Ahmed was apparently shot in the hand by the other gunman afterwards. Note that he sneaks up on the shooter from behind; seems the shooter neither saw nor heard him. Amazing footage.
UPDATE 8:30 PM:
A person of interest in the Brown shooting has been identified as Benjamin Erickson. There’s a lot of information about him here, but nothing that would immediately suggest a motive except for a possible mental health history. He may have become a Brown student in the fall of 2025, but that’s not clear.
UPDATE 10:50 PM
This is probably totally unrelated to the rest of the news in this post, but Rob Reiner and his wife have been found murdered in their Brentwood, LA home:
On Sunday, Dec. 14, the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) was called to the home at around 3:30 p.m. local time to provide medical aid, and upon arrival, they found a man and a woman dead, the LAFD confirmed to PEOPLE.
Rob and Michele were found dead by apparent homicide inside their home, TMZ reported. According to the outlet, they suffered wounds consistent with a knife attack.
Terrible news. RIP.
UPDATE 12:20 AM 12/15/2025:
Now it’s been announced that Reiner and his wife were killed by their son Nick, who has a lengthy history of drug addiction and homelessness although in recent years was said to have been doing better. Horrific.
I’m seeing unconfirmed reports of an attack at a Hanukkah concert in Amsterdam.
For example: https://x.com/PamelaGeller/status/2000306548992508075?s=20
FNC’s report just now said that the unnamed Brown shooter, who is in custody, shouted ‘something’ before opening fire.
Giving odds on what he shouted.
“How was this guy a licensed gun owner?”
You want to be the government apparatchik who say “No” to his license application? You’re on leave pending racism investigation and the local iman has a crowd following you from home to office and the ABC News crew calls you ugly names.
Tragic day of Hanukkah. Instapundit’s roundup Here https://instapundit.com/762374/#disqus_thread
THREE attacks reckoned above.
TJ – plus the Germans took down a group planning an attack on a Christmas Market (per your Instapundit link). I just read the headline after a quick Google to confirm what was in the X post quoted at Instapundit so I don’t know if the attack was planned for today or sometime in the future.
Never been in a firefight but do know shooting without ear protection will make you deaf real fast.
Saw 2 long videos and think the bystander Ahmed was pretty brave and can be seen firing back so maybe put down #1 Gunman.
The Brown University shooting sure looks like a attack on Jewish students but need to know did he know their schedule or not.
Sure the dragging of Identification gives plenty of time for scrubbing social media to hide motive.
24 year old Benjamin Erickson has been named a person of interest in the Brown attack:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/12/breaking-person-interest-brown-university-shooting-identified/
Just heard from my daughter in Alabama that one of the dead students at Brown was from the Birmingham area and attended the same Episcopal church where the little girl who drowned in Texas last summer also worshipped.
The post WWII era is over.
As John Hinderaker of Powerlineblog writes
“I think Jews all over the world need to arm themselves and think in terms of defending themselves at all times. Sometimes police respond effectively, sometimes they don’t. And usually police aren’t there when you need them; not right away, anyway. As Glenn Reynolds has pointed out, in every mass shooting incident there is one group that, by definition, is going to be there–the victims. Only they don’t necessarily have to be victims.”
Countries like Australia make it hard for law abiding people to arm themselves with firearms but there are other weapons like knives and perhaps bows and arrows.
We’re at war, and the enemy is Islam.
And the Pope’s response is to call for an end to the “pandemic of arms, large and small.”
He’s as useless as tits on a bull.
It’s getting harder for me to remain Catholic.
“Countries like Australia make it hard for law abiding people to arm themselves with firearms but there are other weapons like knives and perhaps bows and arrows.”
I dare you to carry a bladed weapon long enough to serve as a defensive tool in a life/death scrap. You won’t get out of your house. You neighbours will rat you out. Check the recent “buyback/turn-in” of bladed weapons in Victoria. Abject failure to take the weapons out of the hands of criminals…same as it ever was.
Small concealable blades…may be a different story. But I likely wouldn’t take that to a gun fight.
John Guilfoyle, can you explain how the elder terrorist shooter, who is now dead, could have a legal firearms permit, as is being reported?
IrishOtter49, liberal religious leaders of many types are closing their eyes to the threat of Islamist fanatics. The evil is not in the firearms but in the hearts of those who use them to commit the murder of innocents.
Kate… As I replied to the Boss earlier… Just a hunch, but if you’re the government apparatchik who says “No,” to his application… He’ll challenge and cry “racism” and you’re cooked.
His iman will denounce you and the mobs will descend. The ABC will be hound you and your kids will wear it at school. Of course he can have a license.
Now… I don’t really know… But given the weak-kneed response from the Prime Minister and State Premier… I’d believe anything is possible.
Apparently, the father part of the father-son terror team owns a gun store along with several guns.
Seems like the perfect front.
Barry Meislin:
But I wonder how long he’s lived in Australia, and what are the background checks for having a gun store. I assume not just anyone can open one. I wonder if the two were fairly recently radicalized.
“…The father had a gun license for 10 years….”
In:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/evil-act-anti-semitism-terrorism-12-dead-after-shooting-australian-jewish-event
The son was reported to have been taking classes at a local mosque.
https://nypost.com/2025/12/14/world-news/bondi-beach-terror-naveed-akram-suspect-studied-at-an-sydney-islamic-center/
Then there’s this:
“…ASIO probed Sydney attacker years before deadly Hanukkah rampage;
“Australian intelligence probed one of the Bondi Beach terrorists six years ago over ISIS ties, yet he joined his father in killing 15 at Hanukkah event”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/419340
Go figger…
IrishOtter49 on December 14, 2025 at 8:04 pm:
“We’re at war, and the enemy is Islam.”
Like many Americans prior to 9/11, I did not have a real understanding of Islam, but around 2007 I began reading Robert Spencer and a number of other authors describing the content of the Quran and the Haditha (Hadiths), plus the long history of Islamic battles and successful or unsuccessful attempts at conquest, etc. These also presented the concepts of abrogation and of taqiyya, ideas foreign to Judeo-Christian tradition.
Plus more recently Jay Smith’s videos and related scholarship have called most of the Islamic version of their history into question.
But in the long history of our First Amendment protections against governmental interference with religion, I have never seen or heard of an actual legal definition of just what constitutes “religion”. Before we can truly restrict the inroads of Islam into our constitutional realm, we need to find a way to define it as an ideology that just happens to use a “religion” as a source of “authority” for its “chauvinistic supremacy” [HT Bruce Thornton] and call to jihad against all “non-believers”. Thus it should lose any constitutional protections, perhaps in a similar vein as The Communist Party?? [It is highly likely that someone here has a better idea than I do?]
There are undoubtedly many many books and sources available that do or attempt to define religion, but until a formal legal definition is available that provides grounds to reject Sharia, Jihad, etc., we will be at the mercy of reacting to events such as these attacks, rather than preventing them from occurring in our midst. [“Our” being the Westernized civilization and those elements of it also adopted by the Asian and African peoples, and even the Chinese to some degree.]
One book I found on my selves attempting to address this issue is Allah Is Dead: Why Islam Is Not a Religion [2011], by Rebeca Bynum. I see from my copy that I must have read it some time ago, as there are many yellow high lightings and marginal notes, but I don’t recall that her argument or version was persuasive. Probably time to reread it (it is short at 152 pages).
R2L:
I’ve written two posts on that subject. The first is this, and I discussed it further here.
If the Brown shooting is Islamist, that’s two such terrorist attacks at once.
In the context of recent concerns of multiple 10/7 attacks on America these shootings may be appetizers for something worse over Christmas.
Take care.
People Magazine is now reporting Reiner and wife were killed by their son.
His 80s and early 90s movies are absolutely awesome. ‘Stand By Me’, ‘The Princess Bride’ and maybe my all time favorite movie ‘When Harry Met Sally’ are all time greats.
Just awful news.
FROM NSTAPUNDIT, The 14/14 Bondi Beach massacre, reactION to what Bret Stephen’s piece in the NY Times — “This is what ‘Glibalize the Intifady’ means” op-ed — posted very late Sunday, updated after 1:30AM
https://instapundit.com/762406/#disqus_thread
John Guilfoyle, how do you suggest law-abiding people who live in gun banning countries like Australia arm themselves?
We need to globalize the anti intifada and deport all Muslims. All immigrants, all citizens who are Muslim and all converts.
Get rid of them like you would spit out poison from a snakebite.
They add nothing good to our society.
Benjamin Erickson released.
https://nypost.com/2025/12/14/us-news/person-of-interest-in-brown-university-shooting-released/
+ Bonus…
The Democrats once again expose themselves as utter scum.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/12/dems-release-redacted-photo-of-trump-from-epstein-files-unredacted-version-clears-him/
Doesn’t seem to bother ‘em much, though…since they see their job as bringing down Trump-Hitler and RESCUING America.
(More like WRECKING America…this time for good.)
Bob Wilson… It’s a huge risk because even most pocket knives fall outside the bounds of legal. I think 2 inches is about it.
If you can carry a cane of sorts, do.
There’s a new law about pepper spray in the Northern Territory… It’s “can carry.”
Other than that…?
Bladed weapons are special. Compared to concealed pistol laws in Michigan, you’d think knives were nuclear IED.
I believe it’s time for this, vigils. The majority of people who attend do it for their own benefit. I believe vigils have their place for those who are unable to memorialize any other way, but they are a small minority.
Let’s see — you want to make Australia “safer” for its citizens, so you outlaw most firearms (with a few exceptions for target and sport shooting. That should do away with casual murders.
Then you strictly limit licenses for gun stores. That limits the number of guns in private hands, which should further reduce murders.
Then you issue a gun store license to an immigrant from a Muslim country, whose son is being radicalized through a local mosque that is preaching hatred for Jews.
Let’s see —- what will happen after that? Well I certainly could not imagine a bad consequence. Maybe I should ask an Australian lawmaker what the possible consequences might be.
F.
The lawmaker would say he’d been doing everything the Just and Righteous demanded of him. And, they don’t care about results, so this shooting is….hey, look, over there. A wombat.
And let’s not have any islamaphobia.
With respect to the Brown shooting, I wonder what the effect on police efforts is of finding a suspect? Does the search come to a halt? Do the presumed assertions of the suspect that he is innocent have any bearing or not? Does the matching of suspect attributes, or lack thereof, have significant impact?
I hope we will learn more of the process by which the suspect became a suspect and how it impacted the investigation.
Australia’s Prime Minister says he’s considering tightening Australia’s gun laws in the wake of the Bondi Beach murders. That’ll fix things, right?
https://wlos.com/news/nation-world/australia-to-tighten-gun-laws-after-deadly-bondi-beach-hanukkah-mass-shooting-sydney-prime-minister-anthony-albanese-gunmen-antisemitic-terrorist-attack-israel-hamas-jewish
I know that gun ownership is extremely restricted in Australia. How was this guy a licensed gun owner? Seems very odd.
The father was a gun store owner? That’s quite unexpected.
While I grow increasingly weary of TV news from any source, I did catch a tiny bit by one of Fox’s military vets who was talking about one of the perps using a bolt action rifle. And operating it very quickly and efficiently. His follow-on point was that this guy was very experienced.
He also said it is darkly ironic that while such weapons are far more suitable for something like deer hunting where only one or two shots are sufficient, they also tend to be highly accurate. Many politicians seem to think that only “assault rifles” are the big concern, with their rapid fire capability. At least one of these Sydney shooters apparently got off many rounds in relatively short order.
On Firearm alternatives, California tells Australia to hold my beer
California’s crackdown on ‘less-lethal’ weapons sparks 2A lawsuit targeting Newsom administration
A company that sells self-defense weapons brought a lawsuit on Wednesday against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, alleging that California, a state heavy on gun restrictions, was violating the Second Amendment because it also hindered people from buying less-lethal self-defense products.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/californias-crackdown-less-lethal-weapons-sparks-2a-lawsuit-targeting-newsom-administration
Australia’s Prime Minister says he’s considering tightening Australia’s gun laws in the wake of the Bondi Beach murders. That’ll fix things, right?
==
It’s not intended to fix anything. It’s a diversion so they don’t have to address immigration policy or the operations of the criminal justice system. Australia’s meat puppet politicians are worse than ours.
https://nypost.com/2025/12/15/us-news/rob-reiners-son-nick-in-custody-after-horrifying-murder-of-princess-bride-director-and-wife/
==
Apparently, Nick Reiner is being held on $4 million bail.
1) Lie #1 – Brown U. supposedly has 800 cameras but not one got a facial image
2) Lie #2 – He shouted “something” – like maybe ” I like Brussel Sprouts.”
3) Lie #3 – The surviving witnesses – was he tall or short – was he black, Asian, white, Middle Eastern, a penguin, elephant – WTF – nothing.
How do you find a suspect quickly if you don’t let citizens help you?
The Mayor said in his droning speech: “Healing” – “Thorough investigation” – “closure” so many times I threw up – and the rest a crap load of psycho babble.
If you live in a Blue State or Blue City in a Red State, then you have no rights. No one in RI in authority gives a damn what happens to anyone.
Might I inject something here… re labeling– Islamophobia.
Just for fun I searched for a definition of “phobia”, and early results support my original concept. From Harvard Health dot edu I get: “A phobia is a persistent, excessive, unrealistic fear of an object, person, animal, activity, or situation. It is a type of anxiety disorder.” Note the “Unrealistic” component.
I would suggest that at this time we have ample evidence, both word and deed, that any fear of Islam is far from unrealistic. Your concern for your safety from these people is not a phobia, it is sound situational awareness.
According to an eyewitness, there were four Australian police officers at Bondi Beach, and they did NOTHING as the gunfire went on and on.
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/12/15/shocking-new-detail-about-bondi-beach-terror-attack-changes-everything-n4947083
About 11pm yesterday (14 December), Erickson was released.
https://www.providencejournal.com/live-story/news/crime/2025/12/15/brown-university-mass-shooting-suspect-victims-providence-rhode-island-what-to-know-today/87772388007/
(Link from Powerline. Erickson is not named in the story above but was identified as the person released by Powerline)
— Another Mike
‘Islamophobia’ is just a word like ‘homophobia’. It’s a way of declaring some subjects closed, some views forbidden. It’s a way of saying ‘shut up’, basically.
That said, Islam has been around a long time, and has been many things in that time. There have been times in history when the Islamic world was more civilized than the Western Christian one, when they actually treated Jews better than our ancestors did, for ex. Much of the scientific knowledge of Classical Civilization reached us by means of the Islamic world as well. Real life is complicated and messy.
But that was then and this is now, too.
And yeah, sometimes I wish to Heaven Trump would just shut up. Most of the time his combativeness is useful, but occasionally it becomes cruel and self-defeating, like his comment about Reiner’s death.
Very consciously looking directly away from the real problem, and not acknowledging it, I see the wimpy Australian PM says that, in reaction to the Bondi massacre–carried out by a Muslim father and son–his government is not going to increase the surveillance of, immigration enforcement against, and deportation of hostile Muslims–but, instead, it is going to tighten up even further what are already some of the tightest gun restrictions around, further crippling law abiding citizen’s ability to defend themselves.
The problem is that, even after a destructive creature like this is removed from or voted out of office, they never pay any penalty for the destruction they have caused, and never face actual, full scale prosecution, and jail time.