I entered the house through a hole blown in the wall. It was cold and dusty, the chill of Raqqa's winter hanging in the air.

It has been years since Australia's most notorious jihadist, Khaled Sharrouf, lived here but the place was haunted by his presence.

Sorry, this video has expired The house where Khaled Sharrouf and his family lived in Syria

Khaled Sharrouf has been described as "corrupt" and "an outlaw". ( ABC News )

His neighbour, Abdel Aziz Bin Khalafa, offered an unprecedented, independent account of Sharrouf's life here.

"He was playing it big, being an IS executive, the Islamic State and so on," Mr Bin Khalafa told Four Corners.

"He wanted to be the supervisor of the area. He entered a neighbour's apartment and humiliated him and even wanted to execute him.

"He used to come to my place as if I were some kind of enemy to him. He heard that I disliked IS, he was afraid of me. He feared that I might kill him or come into the compound."

Sharrouf had served jail time over a terror plot in Sydney before leaving Australia and joining Islamic State in Syria.

When I first received pictures of his house in January of 2015, Sharrouf was living in the house with his wife Tara Nettleton and five children, but it was impossible to reach.

Raqqa was still the capital of the so-called caliphate, stretching across north-east Syria to Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, and down towards Baghdad.

A group of Yazidi girls Sharrouf had bought as domestic slaves had escaped, carrying with them images of the stark, two-storey residence at an electricity sub-station south of the Euphrates River.

They also provided images of Sharrouf's children holding guns and sitting inside the home.

Khaled Sharrouf's son poses with a gun. ( ABC News )

Their account was the first independent insight into the extreme life he had established for his family. I pored over satellite images of Raqqa and, by matching them with the photos the Yazidi girls took, found the coordinates of the house.

I got my chance to visit for Four Corners after IS was forced out of Raqqa in October last year, following a relentless bombing campaign by the US-led coalition.

The bridges across the Euphrates River were blown so we had to ride across in row boats that were busy ferrying motorbikes and families.

I was concerned that Syrian Government forces were reported to be about 15 kilometres further south, unsure of whether IS sympathisers would be in the area, and was anxious to get to the house and back across the river as quickly as possible.

The van we hired on the far shore promptly drove into a thick bed of river pebbles and became bogged. With time ticking away, we pushed the van out and I started tracking our journey to the house using the satellite coordinates.

Sorry, this video has expired The outside view of Khaled Sharrouf's Syrian house

When a distinctive water tower in the front yard came into view I was surprised to have finally made it.

Then the neighbour, Mr Bin Khalafa, emerged and quickly confirmed this was the house of Sharrouf.

"Whenever he would step outside here, as soon as he'd see me, he'd carry his weapons and fire in the air as if he wanted to make a point — 'I am here and I have weapons'," he said.

This is only the second time there has been an independent account of Sharrouf's life in Raqqa and Mr Bin Khalafa described a bully and a thug.

"He was so corrupt, it's unbelievable. He was such an outlaw. He was even outside Islamic law," he said.

Mr Bin Khalafa also offered new insight into the isolation Sharrouf's children suffered in their new home.

"They hardly understood Arabic, it was hard for them," he told Four Corners.

"Sometimes we had the feeling that they didn't understand us.

"They would ask many questions about the purpose of everything. They tried to learn but they wouldn't ask you more than one question. If you asked them about something, they wouldn't answer."

Khaled Sharrouf left Australia to join Islamic State in Syria. ( ABC News )

Mr Bin Khalafa recounted how Sharrouf seemed to fall out of favour with IS.

Sharrouf's neighbours often complained to Islamic State about his behaviour and Mr Bin Khalafa said eventually the extremists moved against him.

"At 2am, two cars came by, we could call them security cars. They took him at 2:00am. We heard screaming at 1 or 2am, it was loud. They argued heavily here in the building," he said.

Mr Bin Khalafa mocked the pretensions of the foreigner who came to impose the tyranny of IS in Syria.

"Sharrouf is an Australian," he said.

"He came that far to impose Sharia and Islam on us? When Islam comes from here? He came from far away to impose Islam and he's quite far from Islam."

When he saw him last, after his wife reportedly died following an operation for appendicitis, Mr Bin Khalafa said Sharrouf lacked confidence and seemed nervous.

Sharrouf and two of his sons were reportedly killed in a US air strike last year.

Four Corners airs tonight at 8:30 on ABC TV. Catch up on iView.