Australia is seeking to confirm Islamic State’s claim that an Australian teenage recruit died after blowing himself up in Iraq, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said on Thursday.
It is also believed the 18-year-old has written a blog post claiming he intended to commit ‘a string of bombings across Melbourne, targeting foreign consulates and political/military targets as well as grenade and knife attacks on shopping centres and cafes’.
Islamic State released an image on Wednesday claiming to show Abu Abdullah al-Australi before he carried out a suicide attack on the Iraqi city of Ramadi. Australian media recently named Abu Abdullah al-Australi as a pseudonym of 18-year-old Australian Jake Bilardi.
Images of what appeared to be an explosion were also published by the Islamic State group.
“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.
Iraqi officials said 13 vehicles attacked army positions in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. No details on casualties were given.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Thursday that Bilardi had left improvised explosive devices at his house before going to Syria. Bishop declined comment on the report.
Bishop said Australian security forces believe 90 citizens are fighting alongside Islamic State, and 20 Australians are understood to have died.
Two teenage brothers were stopped at Sydney Airport last week as they attempted to leave Australia to join Islamic State.
“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,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said.
Australia is on high alert for attacks by radicalised Muslims or home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East. In December, two hostages and a radical self-styled sheikh who had sought to align himself with Islamic State were killed in a Sydney hostage siege.
The baby-faced Australian teenager believed to have carried out a suicide bomb attack in Iraq on behalf of Islamic State left chemicals that could be used to make explosive devices at his family home in Melbourne before he fled to Iraq, according to a report on DailyMail.
A police spokesman confirmed to Daily Mail Australia Jake Bilardi’s home in Craigieburn – in Melbourne’s north – was searched by officers.
‘A subsequent search [of the home] found chemicals that could be used to construct an explosive device,’ he said.
‘No actual explosive device was located by police and since this time [police have been working with] other Commonwealth agencies in relation to Bilardi’s activities.’
His family alerted authorities to the items after he fled the country, according to the ABC.
