Aussie teen arrested in Lebanon accused of terror attack plan

AN Australian arrested in Lebanon on accusations he was preparing to become a suicide bomber can be identified as a 19-year-old man from Sydney’s western suburbs.

AN Australian man arrested in Lebanon on accusations he was preparing to become a suicide bomber can be identified as 19-year-old Sydney man Ishaq Ul Matari.

News Corp spoke to Mr Ul Matari last week in the Central Prison at Roumieh, in the capital Beirut.

He has been behind bars since October 28 last year, when he was arrested by the Lebanese Security Forces and accused of planning to become a suicide bomber in Lebanon, or travelling to Syria to become a foreign fighter.

An Australian arrested in Lebanon can be identified as 19-year-old Sydney man Ishaq Ul Matari. Picture: Ishaq Ul Matari/Facebook

Speaking on a phone through two glass walls and two sets of bars from the prison’s B wing for special prisoners, the teenager said he was “going OK’’ and that he had family supporting him in Lebanon and Australia.

“I’m from Sydney. I have been here for nine months,’’ he said, in accented English.

He said he had been receiving visits from the Australian Embassy in Lebanon and hoped to be released soon from the grim and overcrowded prison, which houses 3500 men on a steep hillside in the suburb of Roumieh overlooking Beirut.

He did not know when his case might be resolved.

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Ishaq Ul Matari prayed at Rooty Hill Mosque and was educated next door at the Australian Islamic College. Picture: Ishaq Ul Matari/Facebook

At the family home in Blacktown, in Sydney’s western suburbs, a man who answered to door told News Corp the circumstances surrounding Mr Ul Matari’s arrest were “very tense” and “everyone is fully aware of the situation.” He refused to comment further.

Neighbours in the Blacktown cul-de-sac where the family have lived for more than a decade, knew Mr Ul Matari as a friendly teenager who argued occasionally with his parents.

“But every teenager does that ... I never saw anything like (extremism),” one man said.

“He was always a polite young kid. That’s a bloody shock, (his father) will be mad.”

Mr Ul Matari prayed at Rooty Hill Mosque and was educated next door at the Australian Islamic College, Sydney.

The Sydney teenager is being held at the Central Prison in Roumieh. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Congregants were stunned to hear the allegations but recalled a troubled young man.

“I used to see him every day,” one father of the college said.

“He went away to study then I didn’t see him again, that was about two years ago.

“He was not normal person, maybe depressed or something.”

The college’s chief Iman Syed Tariq said the mosque and school went to great lengths to stop extremism propagating inside the institution and denied Mr Ul Matari could have been radicalised there.

“No way, no way, we don’t even allow the local gangs of youths to come here unless they’re participating in lectures,” Imam Tariq said.

“It’s a pure teaching of Islam. No extremism, no terrorism, nothing like that.”

Lebanese intelligence sources said Australian intelligence officials had been in Lebanon in the past two weeks collecting Mr Ul Matari’s police file.

Mr Ul Matari was 18-years-old when he was arrested last year by Lebanese Security Forces, who announced they had detained a dual Australian-Lebanese national identified only by the initials AM.

News Corp spoke to Ishaq Ul Matari at the Central Prison in the suburb of Roumieh. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

At the time of his arrest in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, they said he was two days away from travelling to Syria to join the Islamic State terror group.

In a press release, the ISF said the then-unnamed teen was born in Lebanon in 1999 but had resided in Australia for “several years’’ and alleged he became radicalised in Australia after watching Islamic State videos and propaganda online.

The security forces said he had obtained an Australian passport and a permit to travel before he arrived in Lebanon on August 20, where he had been placed under surveillance and monitoring.

Mr Ul Mutari’s Facebook page shows several photographs of Tripoli, a city less than an hour’s drive from the Syrian border crossing at Aabboudiye.

On August 24, he posted a photograph of himself wearing Islamic clothing and hat, squatting next to a sheep lying in a large pool of blood which appears to have been killed by having its throat cut.

Cutting an animal’s throat while giving prayers of thanks is the Islamic or “halal’’ way of slaughtering an animal for consumption.

The Sydney teen says he does not know when his case will be resolved.

Mr Ul Matari’s earlier Facebook activity seems to have been devoted to “liking’’ fishing shows, fishing companies, shops and game-fishing operators.

He has several Arabic posts on his timeline, which News Corp was told were simple religious verses, and contained nothing controversial.

The ISF accused Mr Ul Matari of downloading instructions on bomb-making and videos of Islamic State assassinations.

“About a week before his arrest, he contacted a cadre of the Daesh (Islamic State) organisation in Syria and showed his willingness to carry out a suicide or explosive operation in Lebanon,’’ the IFS alleged when his arrest by their Information Division was announced in November.

“He was instructed to do so. He asked the cadre, if this was not possible, to help him move into the Syrian territory to fight in the ranks of Daesh. He was arrested before the answer to his request was received.’’

“The investigation revealed that he had resided in Sydney for several years and embraced extremist ideology by following the publications and videos of the organisation on the internet,’’ they claimed.

“After his arrival in Lebanon he continued (communicating) with members of Daesh in Syria via the internet.

“He was linked with a co-ordinator of the organisation in one of the neighbouring countries where he explained his plan of travel and stages to Syria.

“The Information Division stopped him two days before his departure.’’

ISF alleged the teen had given them information about other Australian members, supporters and financiers of Islamic State.

They claimed he had admitted during his police interrogation that he had “embraced the idea of an advocacy organisation for about two years,’’ and followed several websites, social networking sites and groups affiliated with Islamic State.

“He…was convinced of the idea of jihad, and the implementation of suicide operations in favour of Daesh, and to this end, through the internet, “downloaded the encyclopedias on how to manufacture explosives, and many videos about previous assassinations carried out,’’ ISF claimed.

Originally published as Aussie teen arrested in Lebanon accused of terror attack plan