IS fighter’s son, 8, coached in terrorism
A NEW video filmed by Australian Islamic State terrorist Khaled Sharrouf showing his youngest son wearing a suicide vest and threatening to murder Australians has been intercepted by counterterrorism officials.
The video features Sharrouf’s son Humzeh holding a Glock pistol and an automatic machine gun and making threats.
The video was shot recently and shows the eight-year-old being asked questions by his father off camera, including “How do you kill a non-Muslim?” and “How do you kill an Australian?”.
Humzeh, the youngest of Sharrouf’s five children, then obliges his father by demonstrating how he would carry out each killing.
He also makes statements glorifying IS.
A NSW Police Force spokesman has confirmed police across multiple agencies are investigating the video “emanating from the Middle East”.
The video is of interest to law enforcement officials because it strongly suggests Sharrouf has custody of at least some or all of his children, who family members have been trying to extract from the war-torn region. The question of whether to allow the children to come home – along with any other Australian children stuck in the region – remains a thorny issue for national security agencies and social services, who would be tasked with trying to deradicalise them.
The Sharrouf children left Australia with their mother Tara Nettleton in 2013, but she died of medical complications associated with appendicitis, raising questions about who was looking after them and whether they could return to Australia.
Sharrouf was thought to have been killed in an airstrike several months before Tara died, but he subsequently made a phone call to a Sydney underworld figure.