Australia: Gifted teen embraces Islam, becomes a jihad terrorist
March 8, 2015 11:09 pm By Robert Spencer 13 Comments
Jake“He was obviously a believer in Islam and wanted to fulfil what he believed was his duties to the religion.” And so we see yet another convert to Islam trying to follow his new religion properly and ending up waging jihad. Western governments and law enforcement officials are totally uncurious about this phenomenon. They ignore it at their own risk.
“‘Britain’s white jihadi’ actually a gifted Aussie school dropout called Jake now fighting for Islamic State,” by Armando Cordoba and Michael Bachelard, The Age, March 9, 2015 (thanks to Religion of Peace):
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Two brothers are stopped at Sydney Airport after customs officials suspected the pair had been attempting to travel to conflict zones in the Middle East.
The Islamic State recruit the UK media decried as “Britain’s White Jihadi” in December, proclaiming he was a “major coup for the terrorist group”, is actually a skinny, baby-faced boy from Craigieburn in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, and his non-Muslim family is worried sick about him.
Fairfax Media can reveal that the young westerner pictured last December sitting between bearded men and holding an assault rifle in front of a black flag is actually an 18-year-old Australian called Jake. We will not reveal his full name at the request of a family member.
The revelations come as Australian customs officials confirmed that two teenage brothers, believed to have been attempting to travel to conflict zones in the Middle East, were stopped at Sydney Airport.
The youths, aged 16 and 17, were detained by Customs on Friday, after they aroused the suspicions of two Customs and Border Protection officers, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said.
The teenagers were referred to the Customs Counter Terrorism Unit, which determined that they were intending to travel without the knowledge of their parents. The brothers were allowed to leave the airport with their parents and were issued Court Attendance Notices.
On Sunday Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the interception showed the government’s tough new foreign fighters laws were working.
Meanwhile, Fairfax’s investigation can reveal Jake was a high-flying student, a maths whiz, who attended Craigieburn Secondary College’s CEAP Excel accelerated learning program. However, he dropped out of high school mid-last year after converting to Islam and bought a one-way ticket to Istanbul, on the way to Iraq and Syria to fight for the so-called caliphate.
In December, Jake’s photograph hit Twitter, where a user, Abu Dawud, identified the young man as Briton “Jonathan Edwards”. The tweet said he had “applied for Ucas (Britain’s Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) to [sic] late and wasn’t accepted in any university, so he joined the Islamic state”.
After Britain’s Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph newspapers picked up the story and ran it, Abu Dawud laughed that the had “trolled” and “humiliated” the British media, saying the story was fake, leading to speculation that the picture was doctored.
But Fairfax Media has now had the photograph positively identified by friends and also by members of two north suburban Melbourne mosques as that of a quiet, young Muslim convert who worshipped with them for about a year before disappearing.
“He used to come here when we had a big lecture,” said Abu Zaid, a committee member of the Hume Islamic Youth Centre in Coolaroo, near Meadow Heights.
Mr Zaid said Jake didn’t have a car, so he used to ask the other brothers for lifts to and from the centre, which features a prayer hall for more than 1000 people, lecture rooms, a cafe and a gym.
“He was a very quiet guy, he stuck to himself,” Mr Zaid said. “We weren’t close to him. I didn’t see any of the people [getting] close to him.”
Worshippers at another mosque, the Australian Islamic Social Association in Meadow Heights, also remember young Jake coming there to pray.
It’s understood that Jake, who now goes by the Islamic names Abdur Raheem or Abu Abdullah, was 16 when he began feeling unhappy and started searching for spiritual answers. A school friend introduced him to Islam and he recited the verses required to convert. At the Meadow Heights mosque, people who remembered Jake said his family was negative towards his new religion.
A former school friend, who asked to remain anonymous but said he had known Jake since they were children, said Jake had “made his own choice and he believes its the right choice.
“He was not pushed into IS [Islamic State] and was not pushed into Islam. People can make their own decisions and this was one of his …he felt that it was right for him … He had done sufficient research to believe it was the right step in life,” the friend said.
“He was obviously a believer in Islam and wanted to fulfil what he believed was his duties to the religion.”…
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/03/australia-gifted-teen-embraces-islam-becomes-a-jihad-terrorist
