Sydney Shooting Hero: Ahmad Al Ahmad Intervenes to Halt Gunman, Saves Lives

‘Categories are leaky’ is one of my constant refrains. Anyone who wants to blame all Muslims or Islam for the action of the two murderers in Sydney has to reckon with the Syrian-Australian guy who saved so many lives while risking his own to wrest a gun away from one of the murderers. The same is true of all groups, and it’s part of what makes these targeted mass murders so obscene: the idea that all members of a group bear responsibility or guilt or share the views of other members. The ten-year-old Jewish girl they killed was not shaping policy elsewhere in the world. She was ten. May Mr. Al-Ahmed recover well and be praised and supported for the rest of his days.
Guardian: Jozay, a cousin of Al-Ahmed, said he was recovering from his first surgery and had two more to come. “He took a lot of medication, he can’t speak well,” Jozay said after leaving the hospital on Monday evening.
Another cousin, Mustafa al-Asaad, told the Al Araby television network that al-Ahmed intervened as a “humanitarian act”.
“When he saw people dying and their families being shot, he couldn’t bear to see people dying,” he said.
“It was a humanitarian act, more than anything else. It was a matter of conscience … He’s very proud that he saved even one life.
“When he saw this scene, people dying of gunfire, he told me, ‘I couldn’t bear this. God gave me strength. I believe I’m going to stop this person killing people’.”
Al-Asaad said his cousin was an Australian citizen of Syrian origin, from the city of Idlib. After spending an hour with him on Monday morning, he said his cousin told him “God gave me courage” and that he didn’t regret his actions.
Al-Ahmed’s parents, Mohamed Fateh al-Ahmed and Malakeh Hasan al-Ahmed, told ABC news their son was shot four to five times in his shoulder during the altercation.
“My son is a hero. He served in the police, he has the passion to defend people,” his father told ABC.
The couple had only arrived in Sydney from Syria months prior, and had been separated from their son since he came to Australia in 2006.
Al-Ahmed’s mother told the ABC she kept “beating myself up and crying” when she received the call her son had been shot.
“He saw they were dying, and people were losing their lives, and when that guy [the shooter] ran out of ammo, he took it from him, but he was hit,” she said. “We pray that God saves him.”