What we know about the Bondi gunmen

Two gunmen - identified by authorities as a father and son - opened fire on hundreds of people marking a Hanukkah event on Sydney's Bondi Beach on Sunday, killing 15 and leaving 27 in hospital with injuries.

The father was killed in an exchange of fire with police at the scene while the son is in hospital with critical injuries.

Among the victims of the country's worst mass shooting in decades, which targeted Jewish people and is being treated as a terrorist incident, are a 10-year-old girl, a Holocaust survivor and two rabbis.

The attackers are both said to have pledged allegiance to the Islamic Sate group. Here is what we know about them.

Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke confirmed the relationship between the two gunmen without naming them.

Australian public broadcaster ABC did name them as Naveed Akram, 24 - who is in hospital under police guard - and his dead father Sajid Akram, 50.

Burke indicated the father held permanent residency in Australia, without giving details of his nationality.

The minister said he arrived in the country on a student visa in 1998. Later, in 2001, he transferred to a partner visa and subsequently obtained Resident Return Visas after trips overseas.

The son, he said, is an Australian-born citizen.

The son first came to the attention of the Australian intelligence agency (ASIO) in 2019, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed.

"He was examined on the basis of being associated with others and the assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence," the prime minister said.

Albanese said the two gunmen had acted alone and were not part of a wider extremist cell. They had, he said, been "clearly" motivated by "extremist ideology".

ABC says it understands that investigators from Australia's Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) believe the gunmen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group (IS).

Formerly based in Iraq and Syria, IS was behind or claimed devastating attacks on civilians worldwide including the Paris attacks of 2015 when 130 people died and the Crocus concert hall attack in Russia last year which killed 145 people.

Two IS flags were found in the men's car at Bondi, senior officials told ABC, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A senior JCTT official, again speaking on condition of anonymity, said the ASIO had taken an interest in Naveed Akram in 2019 after police foiled plans for an IS attack.

Naveed Akram, the official said, was "closely connected" to Isaac El Matari, who was jailed in 2021 for seven years in Australia for terrorist offences.

Matari had declared himself the IS commander for Australia.

The gunmen appear to have used long-barrelled guns during the attack, firing them from a small bridge.

A number of improvised explosive devices were also found in the gunmen's car, Albanese said.

New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said the force had recovered six firearms from the scene and confirmed that six firearms had been licensed to the father.

Sajid Akram had met the eligibility for a firearms licence for recreational hunting, Commissioner Lanyon said.

"In terms of a firearms licence, the firearms registry conducts a thorough examination of all applications to ensure a person is fit and proper to hold a firearms licence," he said.

Eligibility for a game hunting licence in NSW depends on the type of animal individuals wish to hunt, the reason for hunting and the land they want to hunt on.

Naveed and Sajid Akram lived in the south-west Sydney suburb of Bonnyrigg, about an hour's drive inland from Bondi.

A few weeks before Sunday's shooting, the two men moved into an Airbnb in the suburb of Campsie, a drive of 15 to 20 minutes.

Three people at the house in Bonnyrigg were arrested overnight during a police raid but released without charge and brought back to the property.

BBC News tried to approach them on Monday but they would not come out to speak to the media.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a woman who identified herself as the wife and mother of the gunmen had told them on Sunday evening that the pair had said they were going on a fishing trip before heading to Bondi

Reuters news agency describes Bonnyrigg as a working-class, well-kept enclave with an ethnically diverse population.

Local residents told the agency that the Akram family had kept to themselves but seemed like any other in the suburb.

"I always see the man and the woman and the son," said Lemanatua Fatu, 66. "They are normal people."

Naveed Akram studied the Quran and Arabic language for a year at Al Murad Institute in western Sydney after applying in late 2019, ABC reports.

Institute founder Adam Ismail said the Bondi shooting was a "horrific shock" and such attacks were forbidden in Islam.

"What I find completely ironic is that the very Quran he was learning to recite clearly states that taking one innocent life is like killing all of humanity," he said on Monday.

"This makes it clear that what unfolded yesterday at Bondi is completely forbidden in Islam. Not everyone who recites the Quran understands it or lives by its teachings, and sadly that appears to be the case here."