A teenager who appeared in Islamic State (IS) propaganda claiming he was ‘Britain’s white Jihadi’ has been identified as a “really bright” Australian teenager called Jake. Jake, described as a quiet youngster but “really bright” student who was especially good at maths, is believed not to have come from a Muslim family but converted to Islam.
Abu Zaid, a committee member of the Hume Islamic Youth Centre, said: “He was a very quiet guy, he stuck to himself. We weren’t close to him. I didn’t see any of the people [getting] close to him.
During his final year at school, Jake reportedly began communicating with an individual that he believed was a journalist working in Turkey. It is now thought that this “journalist” was in fact a recruiter for IS. Jake – who now calls himself Abdur Raheem or Abu Abdullah – went on to purchase a one-way ticket to Istanbul in Turkey, before he apparently made his way to Syria.
