Skip to footer

Australia attempts to verify terrorist's death in Iraq

Intelligence officials are trying to verify the death of Australian Khaled Sharrouf, who became notorious for holding up the severed heads of Syrians, in the Islamic State-held city of Mosul.

|
AP/File
Demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State group slogans as they wave the group's flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, Iraq.
  • By Rod McGuirk Associated Press

| Canberra, Australia

Reports that a Australian terrorist, notorious for holding up the severed heads of Syrian victims, has been killed fighting in Iraq have raised the potential for his young family to be repatriated from the Middle East, Australia's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Australian intelligence agencies were attempting to verify the recent deaths of Australians Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar in the Islamic State-held city of Mosul in Iraq, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said. Both men were seen in photographs posted on social media holding heads of Syrians.

Fairfax Media newspapers reported last month that the Australian family of Mr. Sharrouf's Muslim-convert wife, Tara Nettleton, was trying to help her bring her three young boys and two teenage daughters from Syria home to Sydney.

Sharrouf's 7-year-old son horrified the world a year ago when he was photographed holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier by the hair.

US Secretary of State John Kerry described it as "one of the most disturbing, stomach-turning, grotesque photographs ever displayed."

Ms. Bishop said the Sharrouf's death would have to be verified before Australia considers repatriating the family.

"We understand that there are family members in Syria or Iraq and should these reports be verified, then we will try to be in contact with them," Bishop told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

But the government will not guarantee that the family can return.

"It would depend very much on the circumstances and the advice that we receive from our intelligence agencies at the time," Bishop told ABC.

Sydney-born Sharrouf, who was also a Lebanese national, was a prime target of legislation to be introduced to Parliament this week that would allow terrorists who are dual nationals to be stripped of their Australian citizenship.

The government estimates that up to half the Australians who have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight for the Islamic State movement are dual citizens.

The government has also passed contentious new laws that make it a criminal offense to even visit Mosul or the Islamic State movement's Syrian stronghold of al-Raqqa province, where the Sharrouf family was thought to be based.

Sharrouf was among nine Muslim men accused in 2007 of stockpiling bomb-making materials and plotting terrorist attacks in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's largest cities. He pleaded guilty to terrorism offenses in 2009 and served less than four years in prison.

Sharrouf slipped out of Australia in late 2013 using his brother's passport because his own had been canceled. Ms. Nettleton later took their children to Syria to reunite with her husband.

Nettleton's father, Peter Nettleton, said his son-in-law's reported death filled him with joy.

"I was ecstatic when I heard he was dead. It's great news," Peter Nettleton told The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Australia attempts to verify terrorist's death in Iraq
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2015/0622/Australia-attempts-to-verify-terrorist-s-death-in-Iraq
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe