Parents of Man Who Wrestled Gun From Sydney Shooter Call Son a ‘Hero’

Footage of Ahmed al Ahmed disarming one of the gunmen went viral on social media on Dec. 14.

Flowers at the scene of the shooting in Bondi Beach, Sydney, on Dec. 15, 2025. Cindy Li/The Epoch Times

The parents of a man who wrestled a gun from one of the attackers during the mass shooting terrorist attack in Sydney called their son a “hero” on Dec. 15.

Ahmed al Ahmed, a shop owner in his 40s, was identified as the man who charged the gunman from behind, seizing his weapon and knocking him to the ground, before training the weapon on the shooter, on the afternoon of Dec. 14.

Al Ahmed’s parents, who arrived in Australia only a few months ago from Syria, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he was shot four or five times in the shoulder during his actions to stop the attacker.

“What happened is his friend told him, let’s go have coffee at Bondi. They got there and were shocked to see armed men firing their weapons and terrorists. Their lives were in danger,” his father, Mohamed Fateh al Ahmed, told the broadcaster in Arabic.

“He noticed one of the armed men at a distance from him hiding behind a tree. My son is a hero.

“When he saw people laying on the ground and the blood everywhere, immediately, his interests and his soul compelled him to pounce on one of the terrorists and to rid him of his weapon.

“At the same moment, the armed man’s other friend was on the bridge. ... I feel pride and honor because my son is a hero of Australia.”

The father said his son had been in the country since 2006 and is now an Australian citizen, but before he arrived in Australia, he had worked for the police and the central security service in Syria.

In separate comments to the Sydney Morning Herald, al Ahmed’s migration lawyer, Sam Issa, said that his client would “do it again” despite having been “riddled with bullets.”

“Our hero is struggling at the moment,” Issa said, revealing that al Ahmed was recovering from his first round of surgery.

According to Issa, al Ahmed suffered about five bullet wounds that were across his left arm, but one bullet, which lodged into the back of his left shoulder blade, has yet to be removed.

“He’s a lot worse than expected. When you think of a bullet in the arm, you don’t think of serious injuries, but he has lost a lot of blood,” he said, adding that there are fears al Ahmed may lose his left arm.

Tributes for al Ahmed’s bravery streamed in after footage of his actions went viral, including from U.S. President Donald Trump.

“In Australia, it’s a very, very brave person actually who went and attacked frontally one of the shooters and saved a lot of lives,” Trump said during a press conference in Washington.

“[He is a] very brave person who’s right now in the hospital pretty seriously wounded, so I have great respect to that man who did that.”

Trump also labeled the attack “obviously” anti-Semitic in nature as he extended his respects to all those affected by the shooting.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns also hailed him as “a genuine hero” and said the video was “the most unbelievable scene” he had ever seen.

A GoFundMe page set up for al Ahmed has raised more than AU$1.4 million (US$930,000).

Australian police on Dec. 15 said a father and son duo, aged 50 and 24, carried out the attack at a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s world-famous Bondi Beach on the afternoon of Dec. 14, leaving 15 people dead and another 40 wounded, in the country’s worst mass shooting in almost three decades.

The elder gunman, Sajid Akram, was shot on the scene by police and declared dead, and his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, was also shot but survived and remains in police custody.

Both lived in Sydney’s far western multicultural suburb of Bonnyrigg and rented an Airbnb property in the suburb of Campsie before embarking on the attack.

The incident was declared a terrorist attack, and the police commissioner said it “appeared to be a deliberate shooting towards members of the Jewish community.”

“I want to make sure we do a very thorough and transparent investigation, which is what our police are doing at the moment,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said.

Lanyon declined to say whether the gunmen were Australian citizens or how long they had been in the country.

Reuters contributed to this report.