Australian IS militants Khaled Sharrouf killed in Syria, report says

Mr Dutton said the Islamic State fighter and his wife were “horrible people” and “atrocious parents” with reports two of their sons had also been killed by the US Joint Special Operations Command.

“I’m aware of the reports that Khaled Sharrouf has been killed, it is always very difficult to confirm given we are dealing with warzones in Syria and Iraq,” Mr Dutton said.

“The point to make though is that no Australian would mourn the loss of Khaled Sharrouf. He was a terrorist, he sought to harm Australians and if he returned to our country he would be a significant threat to this country.

“So nobody would mourn his loss and the fact is if people make a decision to go to the Middle East or anywhere else to engage with ISIS to fight against countries like ours then, frankly, they deserve the outcome that perhaps has happened to Sharrouf.”

Mr Dutton said nobody wanted to hear that Australian children were killed in a warzone.

“(But) the fact is Sharrouf and his wife took their children into a warzone and if they had been killed then what other outcome would they expect?” he said.

“They were obviously horrible people, atrocious parents and to take their children into that warzone … who would expect any other outcome from parents as evil as their father.

“Khaled Sharrouf is a person of extremely poor character and that is the reality.”

The strike, overseen by the US Joint Special Operations Command, has been confirmed by senior intelligence sources.

The Australian can reveal a special meeting of the National Security Committee of Cabinet was held yesterday leading to speculation that the Sydney terrorist had been killed.

A senior intelligence source has confirmed that the government was notified yesterday and that Sharouf’s two children were also in the vehicle.

“We’ve tried for a long time…we thought we had got him before,” the source said.

The Australian has been told Sharrouf, who fled to Syria along with his wife and five children, was killed two to three days ago in a drone strike or bomb attack on his car while driving near Raqqa on August 11.

A senior intelligence source has confirmed that the government was notified yesterday and that two of Sharouff’s children, Abdullah, 12 and Zarqawi, 11, were also in the vehicle.

Photos of Sharrouf’s corpse and the corpses of his sons had been seen by members of Australia’s extremist community, the ABC reported.

With his friend, former Sydney man Mohamed Elomar, Sharrouf fled Australia in late 2014. He was one of the first Australians to join Islamic State and along with Elomar gleefully documented his grisly exploits on social media.

In 2015 he attained global infamy after The Australian published a picture of Sharrouf’s young son holding aloft the severed head of a Syrian official.

The picture became an iconic image that symbolised the barbarity of the Islamic State.

There were reports in June 2015 that Sharrouf was killed in the same coalition air strike that killed Elomar.

Video emerged in April that showed Sharrouf coaching his youngest son on how to murder Australians.

Sharrouf’s wife, Tara Nettleton, died in 2015, leaving their five children in the Middle East. Her mother Karen has tried unsuccessfully to bring the children back to Australia.

(Source: The Australian)