‘My soul asked me to do that’: Bondi hero breaks silence on tackling gunman

“My soul asked me to do that,” said Ahmed al Ahmed, the hero who tackled and disarmed gunman Sajid Akram during the Bondi Beach terrorist attack.

In an interview with US broadcaster CBS, al Ahmed described for the first time the moments he grappled with Akram and wrenched a pump-action shotgun away from the man who had been firing at Jewish people attending a Hanukkah event on December 14.

“I jumped in his back, hit him and … hold him with my right hand and start to say a word like, you know, to warn him, ‘Drop your gun, stop doing what you’re doing’,” al Ahmed said.

In footage viewed by millions of people, al Ahmed can be seen springing from between two parked cars at 6.45pm and grabbing Akram.

“Emotionally I’m doing something … I feel something, a power in my body, my brain and I don’t want to see people killed in front of me, I don’t want to see blood, I don’t want to hear his gun, I don’t want to, you know, see people screaming and begging, asking ‘help, help’.

“That’s my soul asked me to do that, and everything in my heart, and my brain, everything just worked, you know, to manage and to save the people’s life,” he said.

Al Ahmed, a 44-year-old tobacco shop owner who had been having coffee with a friend near the beach when the attack started, is still recovering from at least two gunshot wounds to his left arm.

With his arm in a sling, he told CBS correspondent Anna Coren he was not worried about the second gunman – Sajid’s son Naveed Akram – and was focused purely on disarming the attacker nearest to him.