Melbourne man Suhan Rahman, dubbed Abu Jihad Al-Australi after joining Islamic State fighters in Syria, has been killed in the conflict, according to social media reports.
Images have emerged of Rahman lying on the ground soaked in blood, with a firearm lying on his chest. His death was confirmed in a tweet that appears to have come from his wife’s account.
“May Allah accept my husband, Abu Jihad al Australi,” she wrote. “Promised Allah and fought in the front lines until he obtained shahadah.”
A friend replied to her: “Our husbands die in frontlines but that doesn’t stop women in the west from sending their husbands to kill kuffar.”
“All we wish for is our husbands blood to be shed for the sake of Allah.”
Rahman, 23, was a student at the University of Melbourne living in Roxburgh Park before he left to fight in Syria. In January, he posted photos of himself online with Mohamed Elomar and Mahmoud Abdullatif, who are also thought to be fighting with Isis.
Elomar has featured in propaganda videos featuring beheadings, and has also been accused of enslaving and raping Yazidi women in northern Iraq. Earlier this year, Rahman’s father, Lutfur Rahman, told the Daily Telegraph his son had brought “shame” on the family.
“We hoped he would never get into this type of thing,’’ he said.
But Rahman soon began posting from his Twitter account, encouraging people to carry out attacks against Australians.
“Don’t be cowards,” he wrote. “Where’s the honour where’s the courage. Let the heads fly and blood flow.”
Rahman’s apparent death follows that of 18-year-old Melbourne man Jake Bilardi, reportedly killed in a suicide attack in Iraq earlier this month while fighting with Isis.
