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The young Melbourne man at the centre of the latest case of Islamic State recruitment, was not on the radar of authorities before he turned up in the Middle East.
Rather he was what authorities call a "cleanskin", Fairfax Media understands – an impressionable youngster who was radicalised fairly quickly and at some point made contact with an Islamic State recruiter without coming to the notice of police or security agencies.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned on Monday that too many Australians were being "brainwashed online" by Islamic extremist propaganda. His warning followed Fairfax Media's revelations that the so-called "white jihadi" was a Melbourne teenager named Jake and two other Australian teens were stopped at the border trying to leave for the Middle East.
After Fairfax Media revealed the case, authorities have confirmed his identity as Jake Bilardi.
Mr Abbott vowed to work with Muslim communities to do "everything that we can to crack down on this".
"Too many Australians, it seems, are being brainwashed online by this death cult," Mr Abbott said.
Fairfax Media understands that authorities became involved in the case of the young Melbourne man known as Jake after he surfaced in the Middle East. Jake made plans to become a suicide bomber in Iraq – though he pulled out – and was last known to still be in the country.
He appears to have been influenced by extremist material on the internet, though he also attended the Hume Islamic Youth Centre, which is associated with the national Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama'a Association of Australia, a group with a history of hosting ultraconservative Muslim preachers.
There is still hope of encouraging him to leave the region and return home, it is understood.
However, he may have already broken various laws against entering a foreign country to engage in "a hostile activity", entering one of the government's new "declared zones" or belonging to a banned terrorist organisation.
Mr Abbott said the government was embarking on a major campaign to counter propaganda from extremists such as the Islamic State terror group.
Attorney-General George Brandis announced last month that the government would spend $18 million to combat propaganda from groups such as the Islamic State.
This will include monitoring and analysing social media to better understand "extremist narratives", challenging the claims of extremists and encouraging Australians to report such offensive or illegal material so that it can be taken down.
Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner for counter-terrorism Neil Gaughan recently told Fairfax Media that authorities were concerned at the growing number of "cleanskins" who were "self-radicalising and going overseas".
