Australian man Jake Bilardi is only 18 – but now he’s living in Syria and fighting with ISIS. How on earth did this happen?
When an image circulated around the world of a white western boy appearing in an ISIS propaganda image, British press labelled him “Britain’s White Jihadi.”
But after a Fairfax Media investigation, the teen in the picture was actually identified as 18-year-old Australian Jake Bilardi — and now many are asking, how on earth did this young guy wind-up halfway across the world and fighting with the world’s deadliest cult?
Today, we’ve rounded up the facts to answer your most pressing questions about the “White Jihadi”.
Who is Jake Bilardi?
A non-Muslim Melbourne boy, Bilardi grew up in the suburb of Craigieburn.
The youngest of six children, he’s been described as a high-achieving student who grew up as an awkward teen who was bullied by schoolmates.
“He was quiet and barely had any friends. Whenever you tried to joke with him he would react aggressively,” school mate Ulus Shefket told Daily Mail Australia.
Below, Bilardi is seen being subjected by schoolmates to ‘happy slaps’ — a cruel move in which students film victims being hit from behind and post the videos online to humiliate them.
Bilardi was also “quite politically aware for his age,” schoolmate Kutlu Karapinar told Fairfax Media.
But it was when his mother died of cancer at age 16 that Bilardi really began to withdraw and started seeking spiritual answers. At that time, a friend introduced him to Islam and the teen began attending different Meadow Heights mosques.
Read more:The situation in Syria is now the worst humanitarian crisis since WWII.
“He used to come here when we had a big lecture,” Abu Zaid, a member of the Hume Islamic Youth Centre, told Fairfax Media.
“We weren’t close to him. I didn’t see any of the people close to him.”
Those who remember him from the Mosque said his family — including two older brothers and a sister — were negative about his new religion.
Did Bilardi think he was going to Istanbul to be a journalist?
There are conflicting reports about what convinced Bilardi to head to Syria and join ISIS. However, the Farifax investigation revealed the teen began talking through online forums to who he believed to be an American journalist from the BBC.
Bilardi then reportedly told his family he was going to Istanbul to work with the journalist and about mid-last year, he dropped out of school, closed all social media accounts and left Australia with a one-way ticket to Istanbul.
He ended up in either Syria or Iraq — and the ‘journalist’ he’d been talking to online, it appears, was actually an Islamic State recruiter.
Read more: The true identity of ISIS executioner ‘Jihadi John’ has just been revealed.
Bilardi’s family said he never expressed interest in becoming a journalist, but the ABC reported otherwise when speaking to Angela Scaffidi, who met Bilardi when he interned at communications firm Senate SHJ.
She said the teen was a talented writer who wrote a blog on Australian and international news.
“It was quite factual, it didn’t have an ideological slant… his idea was to blog away to get into journalism,” Ms Scaffidi said.
Was he pushed into joining ISIS?
Before Bilardi left for Syria, he deleted all online activity except a link to video-sharing site Livestream where he streamed Islamic lectures. His profile included a known quote stating: “Send me into exile is to send me away in the path of Allah. And to kill me is to make me a martyr.”
An anonymous childhood friend told Fairfax Bilardi knew what he was doing and believed is was the right choice.
“He was not pushed into IS [Islamic State] and was not pushed into Islam… he had done sufficient research to believe it was the right step in life… he was obviously a believer in Islam and wanted to fulfill what he believed was his duties to the religion.”
He is now thought to be threatening an attack on Australia.
It is reported that Bilardi now goes by the Islamic name of Abdur Raheem or Abu Adbullah.
Just yesterday, Australian Federal Police (AFP) received threats from who they believe to be Bilardi.
“What we have in store for you dogs will make 9/11 look like child’s play,” he allegedly wrote via his account, which has now been suspended.
Two months after leaving, he contacted his family to tell them he was in Iraq training for a martyrdom mission but then called again to say he was “too scared to do it and he prefers being a soldier” the family told Fairfax.
In December last year it was discovered that an Australian living in Syria was tweeting threats to the AFP after the Sydney seige. It’s now been discovered that Bilardi was behind the messages.
Bilardi’s story might seem bizarre, but he is just one of more than 100 Australians who have have left to fight for the terrorists group in Iraq and Syria.
Of those, around 40 are believed to be women travelling over to become ‘jihabi brides’.
Related content: Two Austrian girls have fled their homes to become ISIS brides.