An Australian teenager who converted to Islam and ran off to join Daesh apparently left behind a blog post explaining his wonderful reasons for his excellent adventure, the Guardian reports.
The 18-year-old Australian reportedly killed in a suicide attack in Iraq on Wednesday had previously planned to launch “a string of bombings across Melbourne”, according to a blog seen by Guardian Australia.
Melbourne teenager Jake Bilardi was reported on Monday to be fighting with the Islamic State militia group in Syria and Iraq.
Social media accounts linked to the group posted photographs on Wednesday that appear to show Bilardi preparing to attack an Iraqi army unit in the Anbar province west of Baghdad.
The images have not been verified, but reports from Iraq have claimed that 10 people had been killed and up to 30 injured in a wave of up to 21 suicide attacks on Wednesday.
It’s good to have adventures at age 18. It’s possible to have adventures without murdering people.
Guardian Australia has found a now-deleted blog written under Bilardi’s nom-de-guerre, Abu Abdullah al-Australi, which appears to provide a chilling insight into how a precocious young man became obsessed with political injustices and embraced violent extremism as the answer.
The blog’s veracity could not be confirmed, but references to the writer’s age and origin in a non-Muslim family in Melbourne line up with reported accounts of the teenager’s life.
The blog includes claims that before fleeing to Syria, the writer drew up plans to launch “a string of bombings across Melbourne, targeting foreign consulates and political/military targets as well as grenade and knife attacks on shopping centres and cafes”.
Knife attacks – he was planning to kill people with a knife.
The attacks would culminate “with myself detonating a belt of explosives amongst the kuffar”, he wrote.
“The kuffar” – as one might say “the niggers” “the Jews” “the whores” “the dogs” “the vermin.” It’s an evil way to think.
His blog has been deleted but here’s the cache. Look how he begins:
With my martyrdom operation drawing closer, I want to tell you my story, how I came from being an Atheist school student in affluent Melbourne to a soldier of the Khilafah preparing to sacrifice my life for Islam in Ramadi, Iraq.
See what he did there? It’s his life that he’s “sacrificing.” There’s no mention of the other people he plans to murder, no mention of their lives that he plans to “sacrifice” for Islam. That tells you all you need to know about him right at the beginning.
“Political injustices”, sure. I wonder how much of the appeal of Islamism for him involved its androcentricity and sexism.
Narcissistic, kuffarphobic, psychopath, in other words, the ideal Islamist…. born and bred in my home town, “The World’s Most Livable City”. Jeeez!
Let’s hope, if the reports are true, that the little shit Darwinned himself and didn’t take any innocents with him.
According to ABC News (Australia) Bilardi’s suicide bombing ‘killed no one but himself’, so he’s probably eligible for the Darwin Award after all.
[meta]
RJW above, leaving aside Jake was as much a victim as a tool, you can’t know that.
(Remember the sex slaves Daesh kidnaps?)
Much easier to believe he made bad choices than that he was intrinsically a bad person.
John M:
Easier perhaps. But either every person has to take responsibility for the choices they make, or no person does. If you disagree with that, how do you set the cutoff point, and the dividing line between responsibility and otherwise?
Remember your 17-yo self, Omar?
More seriously: I wrote “easier” because I think it more likely, not because it pleases me.
He did, by all accounts. FWTW.
I do disagree with that, but purely because there is no such need. It’s optional.
@5 John Morales,
Bad choices?
He didn’t choose the wrong career or lose all his money in a Ponzi scheme, he decided to commit suicide and murder innocent people, most teenagers manage to avoid that kind of “bad choice”.
What relevance do Daesh’s sex slaves have? So far, no evidence has been presented that Bilardi was kidnapped and forced into planning to commit an atrocity, only his monumental incompetence prevented the murder of innocent people, or perhaps, he actually changed his mind at the last moment, who knows?
@6 Omar
“But either every person has to take responsibility for the choices they make, or no person does.” Yes, exactly, claiming that “The Devil made me do it”, is well past its use-by-date.