TO the throng of Iraqi soldiers that swarm about him in the Australian Defence Force’s Taji base north of Baghdad, he is known simply as Al-Sahir or “magic man”.

But the true trick of Australian Army soldier Private Karam Elias is that he is one of only three Australian-Iraqi Diggers in the ADF deployed to operations in the embattled nation to inspire his family’s countrymen in their final push against the Islamic State.

The 22-year-old is like any other of the 300 ADF soldiers from Task Group Taji except he is a fluent Arabic speaker with the distinct accent of north Iraq from where his family fled to start a new life in Sydney’s western suburb of Fairfield back in 1996.

His family grew up in Baghdad but were from the largely Christian township of Tel Kaif outside of Mosul which until just last month was an ISIS stronghold.

The Digger, who now lives in Adelaide, has been involved in the training of Iraqi troops from the area and specifically that town and according to his commanders, it is the family connection that has been inspiring the troops to whom he speaks in their language.

That and an array of card tricks he plays with them which earned him the title of Al-Sahir which is etched in Arabic script on his Army patch on his chest where his surname would normally be.

“I was lucky not to be born here and I escaped all the wars,” the young soldier and former Patrician Brothers College student said yesterday.

“First of all they don’t recognise because I don’t have the facial features of an Iraqi so they just think I am Australian especially the Aussie accent, but as soon as I talk Arabic they all get the same facial look, really surprised and I get a thousand questions and I tell them I’m from here and they say ‘yes us as well’.

“The biggest thing I can think of, for them it may seem normal but coming from Australia you start to realise these guys really have it hard. It’s like paradise back home so I really feel for them, they are really doing the right thing trying to get their hometowns back.”

His father Rafid, a former conscripted soldier himself in Saddam’s regime, said he was proud of his son but worried about him being in that country.

“Of course I am proud and I show him the good feeling I have to support him but his deployment was the worse one, all the past of my time in the military came back from when I was there and the time is different but I am worried,” Mr Elias who owns a small mixed goods business in Fairfield Plaza, in western Sydney said.

“But I am very proud of course his Iraqi background, in Australian Army serving Australia and doing something good for Iraq but I still worry, I still worry.”

Karam is on a six-month minimum deployment to Taji.

One of the other Iraqi-Australians in the ADF is Karam’s cousin.