Revealed: Full list of Aussie jihadis fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq
EXTREMISTS targeting young Australians in their bedrooms and lounge rooms are using the deaths of 21 Australians to recruit new fighters to the Middle East and urge them to carry-out home-grown terror attacks.
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EXTREMIST groups targeting young Australians in their bedrooms and lounge rooms are using the brutal deaths of 21 Australians to recruit new fighters to the Middle East and urge them to carry-out home-grown terror attacks.
A dailytelegraph.com.au investigation can reveal more than half of Australia’s most notorious jihadists and terrorist sympathisers were based or grew-up in south-west Sydney.
The bloody and brutal deaths of Australians in Syria and Iraq – the latest being Melbourne male model Sharky Jama – has failed to stop IS, al-Qaeda and Kurdish propaganda machines targeting young Australians.
SCROLL TO BOTTOM TO SEE THE FULL LIST OF AUSSIE JIHADIS
Islamic State’s so-called “Caliphate” in Syria and Iraq has become a magnet for disillusioned Australian Muslim teenagers consuming hate sermons on their laptops and mobile phones.
The list of Sydney’s jihadists includes a champion boxer, four brothers, a convicted terrorist and standover man, university and high school students, a butcher’s apprentice, a former soldier, street preachers, and a private school girl.
Of those who successfully made it to Syria, linking up with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra, almost nine in 10 were young males with an average age of 23.
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Already, nine impressionable young Muslims from Sydney’s south-west have been killed, blinded by terror recruiters and a call to arms via Twitter, Facebook and Ask.fm.
Other Sydney jihadists, who haven’t been identified, are also believed to have been sent to their death.
AVERAGE AGE OF AUSSIE JIHADI FIGHTERS AND ALLEGED SUPPORTERS: 23.6 years
For some who travelled to Syria via Turkey, south Asia and Europe, their mujahideen journeys lasted only several months, sometimes weeks, before they were brutally shot dead or torn apart by bomb fragments.
The dailytelegraph.com.au can reveal senior federal government officials are working with community leaders to towards establishing an Imam’s register to keep tabs on radical clerics and deter “YouTube Sheikhs”.
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The Australian fighters are seen as trophies by their jihadi masters – manipulated and used by the IS propaganda machine to attract new supporters.
Bankstown apprentice butcher Abdullah Elmir – known as the “Ginger Jihadi” because of his pale-skin and hair colour – has appeared in two videos.
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Using foreigners in IS propaganda is directly aimed at vulnerable young men and women in the west, including Australia.
Former NSW Police counter terrorism boss Peter Dein told the dailytelegraph.com.au last year that south-west Sydney had become a hotspot for radical recruitment.
And this is replicated in the high number of Sydney men and women who have made the journey to Syria and Iraq.
The characteristic sounds of Arabic chime along the main streets in Auburn, Lakemba and Bankstown.
Women in burqas hold the hands of their children as they shop for groceries and the aroma of roasting meat wafts from the kebab houses.
Near the Bankstown Memorial Park, extremists flocked to a tiny prayer room in an unassuming bookstore.
Mentally disturbed thug–for-hire and convicted terrorist Khaled Sharrouf and his equally notorious mate Mohamed Elomar – a former champion boxer – had close links with the bookstore.
Egyptian-born Sydney cleric Sheikh Abu Sulayman – born Mostafa Mahamad Farag – delivered a fiery sermon at the same bookstore but has since fallen out with Sharrouf and Elomar.
Sulayman, who has become Al-Qaeda’s leading English-speaking spokesman delivering speeches and interviews in a clear Australian accent, has established himself as one of the highest ranking members of Jabhat al-Nusra.
Radical preachers Robert “Musa” Cerantonio and Junaid Thorne also delivered sermons at the Bankstown bookstore, which shut its doors last year.
In the past decade, meeting places for radical youth included the Global Islamic Youth Centre, originally set-up and run by Sheikh Feiz Mohammed.
Sheikh Feiz – famous for rants slamming rape victims, calling for the beheading of a Dutch politician and attacking popular fictional character Harry Potter – was blamed by Elomar’s father for brainwashing “children”.
Feiz, who has reportedly stepped away from his radical approach, has been linked to the radicalisation of high-profile cases including the Boston bombers and the Sydney Boys High School brothers stopped by Customs at the airport last month.
While Sheikh Feiz has toned back his rhetoric in recent years, his sermons live on through YouTube registering up to one million hits.
Security sources have blamed several recent high-profile cases of young Australians planning on travelling to Syria on web-based propaganda.
Zehra Duman – the 21-year-old who travelled from Melbourne – recently boasted about how she hid her radicalisation from her parents.
‘They were shocked, as I never have been public with my jihadi views, but also heartbroken, as my mum was very close to me ... and she knows she will never see me again. Till (heaven, god willing).”
Melbourne teen Jake Bilardi – a recent convert to Islam – also disguised his intent before his suicide bombing in Iraq captured global headlines.
Sharrouf and Elomar – who have bought and sold Yazidi slave girls and children – are poster boys for IS.
They represent the murderous intent of the group and act as enforcers in the IS stronghold of Raqqa – 14,000km from the suburban life Sharrouf and wife Tara Nettleton enjoyed in a Wiley Park cul-de-sac. Sharrouf met his Anglo-Australian wife at Chester Hill High.
Cruising around in their BMW luxury sports sedan, Sharrouf and Elomar post photos holding the heads of Syria soldiers, promote young children holding weapons and decapitated heads, and issue threats to Australian citizens.
The debauchery of their actions – sent back in videos and photos to Australia - and those of their supporters in Syria sends a shiver down the spine of every Australian parent.
The callousness of the murder and bloodlust has done nothing to stem the tide of potential recruits.
Dozens of Sydney youths have been stopped from travelling to join IS after having their passports cancelled, while teenagers have been stopped at the airport and sent home with their parents.
AUSSIE JIHADIS
1) Mostafa Mahamed Farag (Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir) (NSW) 30
2) Khaled Sharrouf (Abu Zarqawi al Australi) (NSW) 33
3) Mohamed Elomar (Abu Hafs al Australi) (NSW) 30
4) Tara Nettleton (Umm Zarqawi) (NSW)
5) Abdullah Elmir (Abu Zubayr Al Muhajir) (NSW) 17
6) Yusuf Yusuf (Abu Affan Alsomalee) (VIC)
7) Zehra Duman ( Umm Abdullatif) (VIC)
8) Mounir Raad (VIC) 21
9) Neil Prakash (Abu Khalid al Cambodi) (VIC) 23
10) Abraham Succarieh (QLD) 29
11) Muhammed Sheglabo (WA) 23
12) Hodan Abby (NSW) 18
13) Hafsa Mohamed (NSW) 20
14-17) The El Baf brothers - Taha, 17, Hamza, 23, Omar, 28, Bilal, 25. (NSW)
AUSSIE DEAD CULT
18) Amira Karroum (Amira Ali) (NSW) 22
19) Tyler Casey (Yusuf Ali) (NSW) 22
20) Sharky Jama (Abu Tawba Alsomalee) (VIC)
21) Caner Temel (NSW) 22
22) Abdul Salam Mahmoud (Abu Hamza al-Sudani and Yassin Ali) (NSW) age unknown
23) Jake Bilardi (Abu Abdullah al Australi) (VIC) 18
24) Mohammad Ali Baryalei (Abu Omar) (NSW) 33
25) Suhan Rahman (Abu Jihadi al Australi) (VIC) 23
26) Mahmoud Abdullatif (VIC) 23
27) Zakarayah Raad (Abu Yayha ash Shami) (NSW) 22
28) Adam Dahman (VIC) 18
29) Roger Abbas (VIC) 23
30) Yusuf Toprakkaya (VIC) 30
31) Sammy Salma (VIC) 22
32) Mustapha al-Majzoub (NSW) 30
33) Ahmad Moussali (NSW) age unknown
34) Ahmed Succarieh (Abu Asma al Australi) (QLD)
35) Zia Abdul Haq (Abu Yusseph) (QLD) 33
36) Ahmad Mohamad Al-Ghaz’zaoui (NSW) unknown age
AUSSIE KIDS IN SYRIA
37-41) Five Sharrouf children (two daughters, three sons) (NSW)
AUSSIES FIGHTING WITH KURDS AND MILITIAS
42) Matthew Gardiner (returned home to Australia) (NT) 43
43) Ashley Johnston (killed in fighting) (ACT) 28
44) George Khamis fighting with Assyrian Militia (returned to Australia) (VIC)
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