Australia revokes citizenship of Islamic State fighter

 The Australian Government has used anti-terrorism laws to strip an Islamic State (IS) terrorist of Australian citizenship.

A secret panel of intelligence officers, police, bureaucrats and lawyers reportedly made the decision to revoke Ahmed Sharrouf's citizenship earlier in 2017.

Sharrouf, 35, rose to notoriety after posting a picture of his son holding a severed head of a Syrian government official in 2014.

He was the target of wide-ranging anti-terrorism laws passed by the Australian parliament in 2015 which included granting the immigration minister the power to strip citizenship if it can be proved that a person was a member of a terrorist organization.

The law only applies to people who are dual-nationals due to Australia being a signatory to international convention that forbids it from leaving people stateless.

National security sources told News Limited on Saturday that the decision to strip Sharrouf's citizenship was based on his association with IS, which he joined in 2014.

Sharrouf, who was born in Lebanon, must now rely on his Lebanese citizenship if he wishes to leave the conflict zone.

Sharrouf allegedly left Australia with his friend, Mohamed Elomar, before both joined IS during the northern summer of 2014 just as IS launched a full scale assault on northern Syria and Iraq.

Elomar, who fathered a daughter with Shaffour's eldest daughter, was killed in 2015 by a drone strike in the Syrian city of Raqqa, oftn referred to as the "capital" of Islamic State's caliphate.

Both men documented their exploits on social media, posting photos of themselves with severed heads and even posting a video of themselves participating in a mass execution of Iraqi officials near Mosul.

Sharrouf had previously spent four years in jail in Australia for his involvement in a 2004 terrorist conspiracy.

Iraqi media reported in 2016 that Sharrouf had been killed in a United States (US) bombing strike on Mosul but the reports are unconfirmed.

source: Xinhua