Canberra to confirm reports of ISIL Aussie teen’s death

Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says her government is seeking to confirm reports that an Australian teenage boy who had joined the ISIL Takfiri militants has blown himself up in a terrorist attack in Iraq.

“I can confirm that the Australian government is currently seeking to independently verify reports that 18-year-old Melbourne teenager Jake Bilardi has been killed in a suicide bombing attack in the Middle East,” Bishop told reporters in Perth, the capital of the Australian state of Western Australia, on Thursday.

She added, “If these reports are confirmed, this is another tragic example of a young Australian being lured to a senseless and violent death by a brutal terrorist organization that is intent on imposing suffering and misery not only in Iraq and Syria but beyond.”

Bishop noted that Australian authorities were aware of the fact that Bilardi had departed for Iraq and Syria in August 2014, adding that the teenager’s passport was invalidated last October on national security grounds.

On Wednesday, ISIL Takfiris released an image that purportedly shows a white four-wheel drive alongside an inset image of a teenager, who appears to be Bilardi alias Abu Abdullah al-Australi, before he attacks an Iraqi army unit in Iraq’s western city of Ramadi. The claims cannot be verified though.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has termed “absolutely horrific” claims that an Australian teenager carried out an ISIL bombing in Iraq.

“It shows the lure, the lure of this death cult to impressionable youngsters and it’s very, very important that we do everything we can to try to safeguard our young people against the lure of this shocking, alien and extreme ideology,” he said on Thursday.

The remarks come nearly a week after Australian authorities stopped two teenage brothers at Sydney Airport on suspicion that they were travelling to the Middle East to join the ranks of the ISIL terror group.

Australia’s Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton said the pair, aged 16 and 17, were arrested as they attempted to leave the county on March 6.

Canberra said last month that nearly 100 Australians have been fighting alongside and backing terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria and have had their passports revoked.