The mother of the ISIS-linked Muslim who massacred 16 Jews and wounded dozens more at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia yesterday reacted to the news by raving about how her son was the sort of child any mother should wish to have. True, she said she was shocked by the shooting, but her son has been linked to an ISIS terror cell for years, so she must’ve had some inkling that he supported genocide of Jews for some of the time she was proud of him.
For those Muslims who accept all of Islam’s teachings, murdering non-Muslims — especially Jews — is a shortcut to paradise. That is why there is a pattern of Muslim women who come from countries or groups that enforce strict sharia seeing their children’s terrorism as honorable and praiseworthy. That is not precisely the case here, of course, but Naveed’s mother certainly didn’t have quite the sort of horrified reaction one might have expected.
As an example, in Gaza, the Palestinian jihadis’ families filled the street screaming with joy at the Oct. 7 atrocities. The mother of the Bondi Beach killer might not have known that her husband and son were going to commit the attack, but she was apparently proud of her son during the years he was friends with outright terrorists from a Sydney-based cell, multiple of whom were convicted. The question is, why did she think her son was a model of excellence? And does she now think her son is despicable since he acted on his long-held jihadi sentiments, or not?
The Bondi Beach terrorists were Sajid and Naveed Akram. About six years ago, one of them was under investigation by authorities for being tied to a Sydney Islamic State terror cell, per ABC Australia. Multiple members of the cell have since been convicted of terrorist offenses, and yet authorities dropped the investigation on Akram claiming there was not an ongoing threat. One of Naveed’s friends actually planned an ISIS insurgency. The Akram father and son had ISIS flags on their car at the beach where they committed the horrific massacre.
Read Also: Australia Shooter Tied to Sydney-Based ISIS Cell
All of which is to say that when Naveed’s mother Verena says, “Anyone would wish to have a son like my son…he’s a good boy,” we have to wonder just how much she knew about Naveed’s ISIS empathies. If even the Australian authorities, who intensely dislike to acknowledge the reality of Islamic terrorism noticed and looked into his activities, and if multiple of his friends were convicted, his mother must’ve had some sort of hint, it would seem.
Verena did explain why she thought her son was such a good boy. She said he didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t have a gun, and didn’t go to bad places — rather ironic considering the ISIS ties. She claimed he told her that he was with his father on a casual beach and scuba outing just before the shooting.
CBS and Financial Express, among other outlets, reported that Naveed is a Pakistani national, which would seem to indicate that he is not a citizen of Australia, if not an illegal immigrant (some of Naveed’s neighbors claimed he was Australian-born, however). Interestingly, Global Terrorism Index ranked Pakistan second for 2025, citing the world’s fastest-growing terrorist group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Notably, TTP has existed since 2007, raising questions about how “fastest-growing” is being defined.
Pakistan also enforces sharia law, which includes execution for “apostasy” (Muslims who leave Islam), execution or prison for “derogatory remarks” about Mohammed or Allah, amputation of the right hand for theft, whippings for alcohol consumption, and stoning for adultery. And Islamic sacred texts also explicitly encourage the killing of Jews. Sharia is completely antithetical to Western values, and if Naveed is Pakistani, he was raised with this warped view of “justice.” Indeed, simply as a dedicated Muslim, he would have imbibed all these ideas, whether he was born in Pakistan or Australia.
Or, put another way, other Muslims would agree with Verena’s definition of Naveed — by committing deadly jihad, he was being a “good” Muslim.
