Australian authorities are working to confirm reports that two of the country’s most notorious terrorists have been killed fighting for ISIS in Iraq, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says.
Australian media, including public broadcaster ABC, are reporting that Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar were killed by a drone strike in the ISIS-held Iraqi city of Mosul.
Sharrouf gained infamy last year when he tweeted a picture of his seven-year-old son holding a severed head, captioned “That’s my boy.”
At the time, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called the picture “one of the most disturbing, stomach-turning, grotesque photographs ever displayed.”
Sharrouf and Elomar also tweeted pictures of themselves with the decapitated heads of Syrian government fighters, prompting Australian Federal Police to issue arrest warrants for the pair in late July.
‘Difficult to assess’
Bishop told reporters Monday that the government was aware of the reports and were working to verify them.
But the fact that the ISIS-controlled areas of Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa province, Syria had been declared off-limits for Australians made the reports difficult to assess.
“It’s very difficult to gain the information necessary given that it is a war zone,” she said.
“There is a conflict going on, and Australians should not be there.”
Elomar married teen
Sharrouf, who in 2009 was jailed for his role in a planned terror attack in Australia, traveled to Syria with wife Tara Nettleton and their young family in 2013, using his brother’s passport to avoid alerting authorities.
In March, Sharrouf’s 14-year-old daughter reportedly married Elomar, her father’s best friend, becoming the 31-year-old’s second wife.
Elomar has claimed online to have sold captured girls as slaves for $2,500 each, and in August triggered security to be stepped up for a prominent Australian Muslim leader after he offered a $1000 bounty for the man’s whereabouts.
In May, Australian media reported that Nettleton was seeking to return home with the couple’s children from Syria, where it was believed they had been living in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa.
Asked how the family might be treated on their return, Abbott said: “Crime is crime is crime, and criminals will face the full severity of Australian law, whether they’re male or female.”
“I’m afraid you don’t get off scot-free just because you say, ‘I’ve seen the error of my ways.’ If you commit serious crimes, you should face serious punishment, and as far as I’m concerned, that will always be the case.”
Who is Sharrouf?
Born in Australia in February 1981, Sharrouf is the son of Lebanese parents who had a violent relationship with his father and spent most of his youth in and out of local courts.
Details of Sharrouf’s troubled teenage years were revealed in court documents from his sentencing in the New South Wales Supreme Court in 2009 on terror-related charges.
According to the documents, Sharrouf was expelled from school in Year 9 for violent conduct and “was soon drawn into bad company.”
He appeared before the courts on a number of minor charges between 1995 and 1998, when he was also regularly taking amphetamines, LSD and ecstasy. The drugs were likely to have been a “significant factor” in the emergence of schizophrenia, the documents said.
Attack plot
Sharrouf worked as a laborer in the building industry for a time but survived mostly on a disability support pension until his arrest in November 2005 on terror-related charges.
He was one of nine detained after a series of raids on homes and businesses as part of an investigation into a plot for a terror attack in Australia by Islamic extremists. The plot was led by Elomar’s uncle Mohamed Ali Elomar, currently serving a minimum 21-year sentence.
Sharrouf pleaded guilty to possessing batteries and clocks knowing that they were going to be used to make explosives for a terrorist act. However, Sharrouf’s hearing was delayed after he was found to be unfit to stand trial due to mental illness.
In November 2007, a court-appointed specialist said he was suffering an “acute exacerbation of the illness schizophrenia.” He was put on medication, and in early 2009, it was deemed he had made a “remarkable recovery.”
Sharrouf was sentenced to five years and three months in prison. However, as he’d already served most of that time while awaiting trial, he was released from prison after just three weeks.