It had been four months since Abdullah Elmir said goodbye to his Western Sydney family. Now, it's been reported and widely speculated the 17-year-old is the Australian-accented young man who's appeared in the latest I-S video threatening Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Australia.
Muslim community groups say, if confirmed by security agencies, it's a chilling development.
In a statement, a number of key state and national Muslims groups - including the Office of the Mufti of Australia and the Australian National Imams Council - have expressed their shock at the video.
The Grand Mufti of Australia Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed says the threats made are "deplorable" and "misguided".
Lydia Shelly, a spokeswoman for the Muslim grouping, was moved to tears when speaking about how the latest IS message has affected the Muslim community in Australia.
"It's shaken us to the core in a lot of ways and I think this is going to have a very big impact on how Australia handles this for a number of years to come," she says. "I'm concerned about our nation, I'm concerned about the Muslim community, because I don't want to see this rip out our social cohesion or allow us to implode from within because it's incredibly important, now more than ever that we do not allow those videos to destroy us .. because, then the terrorists are winning, aren't they?"
Ms Shelly says Australia needs to have a deeper conversation about why a small group of young Muslim men are being radicalised, including about the possible role of Australia's foreign policy.
The federal government has responded to the flow of Australians heading to the Middle East to fight by putting forward it's Foreign Fighters Bill, which it hopes will pass by the end of this week.
Under the proposed laws people travelling to terrorism hot-spots without a valid reason could be jailed, and enforcement agencies will get extra powers to investigate, arrest and prosecute those who advocate terrorism.
The bill has been examined by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence which has made 36 recommendations to strengthen safeguards in the laws, which the government says it will adopt.
But Ms Shelly says, even if enacted earlier, the bill wouldn't have been enough to stop young men like Abdullah Elmir from travelling to the war-torn Middle East to fight for IS.
"If the foreign fighters bill was law today it wouldn't have stopped this boy from leaving Australia back in June to go fight overseas and that's my concern," she says. "At the moment, we only have a purely legal response to this issue. What we need is a holistic and multifaceted approach to this issue. And that's the only way we can ensure this never happens again."
Ms Shelly points to an absence of intervention programs for Muslim youth on the cusp of radicalisation.
"We need a commitment from the government to counteract any violent, extremist messages, and that includes committing to further funding in regards to community engagement programs, the development of radicalisation programs, but also intervention programs.
"To date, Australia has not got an intervention program, so those people who are on the cusp of radicalisation, currently we have no resources to get those people pulled back into line, and that's extremely concerning."
Ms Shelly says the Muslim community realises it must be pro-active in ensuring it communicates a counter-narrative to the violence and extremism carried out in the name of Islam.
Share
