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.

An Islamic State-linked Twitter account lists Bilardi as one of the “martyrs” from the attacks.

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”.

The attacks would culminate “with myself detonating a belt of explosives amongst the kuffar”, he wrote.

He got as far as collecting materials for explosives and preparing to start building devices before stopping, fearing authorities would become suspicious, and instead focused on crossing the Syrian border.

“With my martyrdom operation drawing closer, I want to tell you my story,” he wrote in the 4,300-word manifesto in January.

An image from Twitter believed to be Jake Bilardi with Islamic State militants in Iraq. Photograph: Twitter/PR IMAGE

Australian teenager Jake Bilardi, who has reportedly died during an Islamic State suicide bombing mission.

He detailed his conversion from a “being an Atheist school student in affluent Melbourne to a soldier of the Khilafah preparing to sacrifice my life for Islam”, beginning with the September 11 terrorist attacks when he was five years old.

He wrote that during the subsequent occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan – before he converted to Islam – he instinctively empathised with the insurgent groups.

“My views almost six years ago would be considered by the Australian government as extreme and myself an Islamic extremist, although I was still an Atheist, a little confusing I know,” he wrote.

The war on terror seems to have shaken the young man’s faith in democracy. “This was the turning point in my ideological development as it signaled the beginning of my complete hatred and opposition to the entire system Australia and the majority of the world was based upon,” he wrote.

“It was also the moment I realised that violent global revolution was necessary to eliminate this system of governance and that it I would likely be killed in this struggle,” he said, suggesting he had become radicalised even before converting to Islam around the beginning of the Syrian civil war four years ago.

The blogger wrote that he was initially drawn to the al-Qaida linked group Jabhat al-Nusra and another Islamist militia, Ahrar al-Sham. Meanwhile he had determined “to finally remove myself from this land”.

“I continued my search for a contact, even at one point considering simply crossing the border alone without any assistance. Finally, I made contact with a brother online who promised to bring me across the border, it was a risky decision to trust someone online but I was desperate to leave and was confident the brother was genuine,” he wrote.

He does not reveal how he fled Australia undetected, but said that he entered Syria via the Turkish border into Jarablus, a town in the northern Aleppo province.

According to the blog, the young man quickly signed up to commit a suicide attack but had a “failed operation” in Baiji, Iraq. “After I witnessed the mistakes made, I turned to fighting in the city before once again registering for a martyrdom operation, a decision that would bring me to the large yet modest city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.”

Police said they had searched Bilardi’s home after he was reported missing last year and found “chemicals that could be used to construct an explosive device”.

A statement said: “No actual explosive device was located by police.”



His family alerted authorities after he fled for Syria in August and the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said the government began to track his movements.

Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, confirms that officials are investigating a claim by Islamic State (Isis) that an Australian teenager killed himself in a suicide bomb attack in Iraq Guardian

“I can also confirm that I have been aware of Mr Bilardi’s presence in Iraq and Syria for a number of months now,” Bishop said.

“In October on the advice of our security agencies, I cancelled his Australian passport. This is a tragic story. If the reports are confirmed, Mr Bilardi will be yet another Australian who has been killed in this conflict on the side of a brutal terrorist organisation.”

The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, on Wednesday described the unconfirmed reports of Bilardi’s death as “an absolutely horrific situation”.



“It shows the lure, the lure of this death cult to impressionable youngsters and it’s very, very important that we do everything we can to try to safe guard our young people against the lure of this shocking, alien and extreme ideology,” he said.