A man claiming to be the military commander of the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL) has told a Melbourne radio station the terrorist group's assault will spread from northern Iraq across the world.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Omar Shishani, who claimed to be speaking from Raqqa, in Syria's north, insulted Jews and the Yazidi minority during the interview on 3AW.
Shishini also described Khaled Sharrouf, the radical father of a young boy raised in Sydney who was pictured on Monday holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier, as a "very lovable, good kid".
Shishini's supposed role as commander has not stopped him from tweeting dozens of times during the conflict and he is shown flanked by men holding AK-47s on his Twitter profile.
He said during the almost 10-minute interview that ISIL was fighting those who had "sold their religion cheap".
The advance of ISIL (also known as ISIS or the Islamic State) through northern Iraq has forced tens of thousands to flee and prompted US air strikes.
An Iraqi government minister said earlier this week that at least 500 Yazidis had been killed by Islamic State militants.
Shishini described the Yazidi as the "filthiest of creatures on Earth".
"We will fight them, we will take their women, we will take their children, they have to come to Islam or they will get wiped out, there is no place in the world for these devil worshippers."
Shishini said Sharrouf, who sparked a storm when he published the photo of his son in Syria online, was a "faithful man". Prime Minister Tony Abbott described the photo as "barbaric" on Monday.
He said ISIL was trying to establish a "terrorist state" in Iraq and posed "extraordinary problems not just for the people of the Middle East but for the wider world".
ISIL militants have regularly posted gruesome images on social media.
Shishini's tweets mostly feature jihadi propaganda, but included statements such as "As soon as Ramadan is over iam goinging for a holiday in Turkey. Raqqa is only so much fun and Mosul sucks [sic]", which was posted on July 23, and "Guys with a lot of tattoos look like little girls who lack self confidence n want somebody 2say how pretty they are. #SiliconBreastSyndrome" the next day.
