Update | Australia sends troops to protect Baghdad embassy, PM vows to stop jihadists returning
Prime Minister Tony Abbot says Australia will prevent jihadists returning as armed unit is dispatched to Baghdad to protect embassy from ISIL militants advancing on the Iraqi capital
Australian jihadists fighting overseas who are “trained killers” and “hate our way of life” should be stopped from returning home and detained if they do, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Friday.
Australia has concerns that its citizens are fighting alongside Sunni militants in Iraq and Syria, including with the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
“Be in no doubt that some individuals from this country are now participating in acts of barbarity in Iraq.”
“The important thing is to ensure that as far as is humanly possible they don’t come back into our country,” Abbott told Sydney radio station 2GB.
“And if they do come back into our country they are taken into detention because what we can’t have is trained killers – who hate our way of life, who hate us – making mischief with the potential to cause mayhem in our country.”
Abbott said more than 100 Australians had travelled to Syria and Iraq, and some had been involved with “this murderous, murderous al-Qaeda splinter group,” a reference to ISIL.
“Be in no doubt that some individuals from this country are now participating in acts of barbarity in Iraq,” Abbott added to journalists.
