Two Australian nationals, who have been fighting along the ISIL group in Syria and Iraq, have reportedly been killed.
According to reports on Monday, Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar were killed last week in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which is under the control of the ISIL terrorist group.
Australian authorities have not confirmed the death of the two terrorists with a spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Julie Bishop saying that Australian intelligence officers are awaiting confirmation of the reports.
Both terrorists left Australia for the territories under the control of the terrorist group in 2013.
Sharrouf had posted a picture on his Twitter account showing his underage son struggling to hold up the severed head of a slain Syrian soldier by his hair. “That’s my boy,” Sharrouf said in the caption of the photo.
Australia issued an arrest warrant for Sharrouf, who had served almost four years in prison after pleading guilty over a 2005 conspiracy to carry out an attack in Sydney.
Speaking at Parliament House in Canberra, Bishop said it is difficult to verify the report of the death of the terrorists.
“Our security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies will be working to verify these reports, but I stress it's very difficult to gain the information necessary given that it is a war zone,” she said.
She also called on Australians to discard the idea of joining the ISIL group.
“Australians should not be there and again we stress that any Australian thinking of going to Syria or Iraq or to the Middle East to support Daesh, to support this brutal terrorist organization, should not go,” Bishop said, using the Arabic acronym for the ISIL militant group.
“It's an offense against Australian law and it's adding to the misery and suffering of the people of Syria and Iraq and they're putting their own lives in danger,” she added.
In May, Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Canberra had so far managed to identify 250 citizens attracted to the ideology of the ISIL terror group operating in Iraq and Syria.
The ISIL terrorist group, with members from several Western countries, controls parts of Syria and Iraq, conducting heinous crimes against different ethnic and religious communities in the Arab countries.
