Bondi Beach shooting hero says he just wanted to stop attacker from killing more innocent people

Ahmed al-Ahmedthe man was hailed as a hero for confronting one of the gunmen behind a anti-Semitic attack on Bondi Beach in Australia earlier this month, speaks out the day after the massacre.

In an exclusive interview with CBS News that aired Monday on “CBS Mornings,” al Ahmed said he “wasn’t worried about anything” except the lives he could potentially save as he sought to disarm the shooter.

“My goal was just to take the gun from him and stop him from killing human beings and not killing innocent people,” he recalled. “I know I saved a lot, but I’m sorry to those who lost.”

Al Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim trader, won international praise for disarming one of two gunmen accused of carrying out the December 14 mass shooting, Australia’s worst since 1996. Surveillance footage showed him jump from behind a car parked along the waterfront and push an attacker to the groundsuccessfully disarming him before Al Ahmed was himself injured.

“I jumped on his back, I hit him. I held him with my right hand and I started saying a word, you know, like warning him, drop your gun, stop doing what you’re doing, and it all happened quickly,” al Ahmed said of his struggle to get the gun out of the gunman’s hands. “And emotionally, I’m doing something, which is I’m feeling something, a power in my body, my brain… I don’t want to see people killed in front of me, I don’t want to hear his gun, I don’t want to see people screaming and begging, asking for help, and it’s my soul asking me to do that.”

He added: “Everything in my heart, in my brain, everything worked just to succeed in saving people’s lives.”

The shooting occurred during a Hanukkah celebration and intentionally targeted Sydney’s Jewish community, Australian and U.S. officials said. Fifteen people died and 40 others were hospitalized with injuries.

Police identified the attackers as Sajid Akram, 50, who was killed at the scene by police, and his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram.

See the rest of the interview Monday on “CBS Mornings”, starting at 7 a.m. ET/PT.