Teen jihadi Abdullah Elmir was Facebook fan of Khaled Sharrouf’s exploits

TEEN jihadi Abdullah Elmir had commented on a gory Facebook photo he had posted of terrorist Khaled Sharrouf hunched over an executed Iraqi.

THE fresh-faced teenage star of an Islamic State propaganda video had been in contact with notorious former boxer Moham­ed Elomar, commenting on a gory Facebook photo he had posted of terrorist Khaled Sharrouf hunched over an executed Iraqi policeman.

Abdullah Elmir, a 17-year-old from Sydney’s west who told his mother he was going on a fishing trip on June 20 before joining the conflict in Syria and Iraq, is believed to have made the post on the day that he reportedly left home. The Australian understands Elmir has been in contact with at least one family member via a smartphone chat app since entering the conflict zone.

One person who knew him yesterday described Elmir as a “smart kid”, well-liked among his peers, who had dropped out of school not long before they heard he had left the country.

The person said his large group of friends were in shock after watching his Islamic State propaganda video on Monday.

This came as the recruitment of underage teens for terrorist causes was compared to children being groomed by pedophiles. On the day he reportedly left his family home, it’s believed he used a Facebook account under a pseudonym — which was later suspended — to comment on a photo posted by Elomar of convicted terrorist Sharrouf holding a handgun while crouched over an executed Iraqi.

“Wow what a beautiful picture,” the June 20 comment under the photo said. Less than a fortnight later, when Islamic State claimed to have established a caliphate over large swaths of Iraq and Syria, Elmir is believed to have posted: “What a beautiful day for the believers.”

Before he even left home, the same account was used to taunt supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir — which wants a global caliphate — with a May 29 comment that said: “You will not achieve anything with only protests. You have to do JIHAD.”

Yesterday, Greg Barton from Monash University’s Global Terrorism Research Centre said terror groups had used social media to identify potential recruits and groom them. “It’s like sexual predation,” Professor Barton said.

“Somebody might strike up a friendship in an online chat forum and present themselves in a different fashion — to try to get them into their web. By the time they actually meet the people they’re speaking with, they may be in too deep to know better.”

In the video that “especially” targeted Tony Abbott and the rest of the country, Elmir claimed Islamic State would conquer Australia, Britain and the US.

After mainstream Islamic bodies representing nearly all of Australia’s Muslims denounced the video and Elmir’s message, radical groups and indiv­iduals — including Wisam Haddad, who ran the now closed Al Risalah centre in Sydney — distributed a statement defending the teen.

With AAP