Jihadi Jake

Jake Bilardi (1 December 1996 – 11 March 2015), also known as Abu Abdullah al-Australi, dubbed by the media as Jihad Jake, was an eighteen-year-old Australian suicide bomber. Bilardi's background has been described as radically different from other Western recruits and symbolises youth issues more than ideological ones.

Life, radicalisation and death Born in Craigieburn, Victoria, Bilardi was a shy, lonely boy and student who was reportedly bullied by peers. He was the youngest of six, his parents were divorced, and he reportedly had many violent outbursts as a child.

In August 2014, Mirsad Kandic, a recruiter for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, instructed him how to travel from Australia to Turkey and thence to ISIL territory. Bilardi flew to Istanbul, arriving on 26 August. He had never traveled internationally before. Kandic arranged to have him picked up at the airport and smuggled into Syria. From there he went to Ramadi, Iraq.

In December 2014, he spoke to reporter Secunder Kermani and said he had told IS he wanted to be a suicide car bomber and was fast-tracked through his training. He told Kermani, "I came here chasing death, I might as well kill as many kuffar as I can" and, "You can stand on a street and scream about wanting change and wait maybe 100 years for things to happen or you can grab a gun and fight and change things quickly." He said his family "hated Islam" and that he believed all Muslims deeply hated Islam. According to a friend, Bilardi was concerned his family would "spend eternity in hell" for being non-believers.

A blog post attributed to Bilardi said, "I was intrigued, why would a group of people living in caves in Afghanistan want to kill innocent American civilians?" In addition to the blog he was very active on Twitter, promoting the Islamic State. ISIL used his death as propaganda, in order to recruit more people to become suicide bombers. Photos, supposedly of Bilardi inside a booby-trapped suicide van, was posted to ISIL-linked accounts on Twitter. stating, "it's very, very important that we do everything we can to try to safeguard our young people against the lure of this shocking, alien and extreme ideology". Greg Barton, director of the Centre for Islam and the Modern World, considers Bilardi a self-radical motivated by underlying mental health issues instead of religious zealotry. His father said Bilardi "had a death wish" and ISIL "used him for his own cause", and said he wished he had gotten help for his son's psychological problems when he was a child. In July 2023, Kandic was sentenced to life in prison.