Why is he here? Baby-faced Islamic 'preacher' who was deported from Saudi Arabia posts his support for ISIS on Facebook after James Foley was beheaded - and he's on his way to Sydney
- Mohammed Junaid Thorne posted in support of the Islamic State
- The Islamic preacher denies claims he leads a group of young Perth men supporting an extreme form of Islam
- A recruitment video shows an Australian reverts who claims Islam saved him from drugs and crime
A Perth Islamic preacher has posted to Facebook in support of the Islamic State saying scholars who support an Islamic State 'are on the front lines, in the battlefields, backing their words with actions'.
Mohammed Junaid Thorne, who has rejected claims that he leads an extremist youth group tied to terrorist group ISIS, posted that they were 'suffering in the prisons' and 'known for speaking the truth, no matter what it costs them'.
The 25-year-old also went on to mock 'The ones who spew the nonsense of "patriotism", "Australian Muslims", "deradicalization", and other terms for which Allah has sent down no authority.'
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Mohammed Junaid Thorne rejects claims of leading an Islamic extremist youth group in Perth
The 25-year-old was deported from Saudi Arabia last year for protesting his older brother Shayden's imprisonment on terrorism-related offences
Mr Thorne, who is an Australian citizen, also told his followers he will be in Sydney next week for some Ruqyah (spiritual healing) sessions, urging them to make contact if they wanted to meet with him.
This comes just days after American photojournalist James Foley was executed by ISIS in Syria, after being abducted by the group in 2012.
In June, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the federal government was investigating Mr Thorne's online posts.
'Any promotion or support for terrorism is against the law in our country,' she told the ABC.
'And [ISIS] is a proscribed terrorist organisation.'
Mr Thorne says he is a university student and claims to have memorised the Koran at age six.
The 25-year-old, who was deported from Saudi Arabia last year for protesting his older brother Shayden's imprisonment on terrorism-related offences, has previously been accused of being a radical preacher for allegedly praising militants responsible for beheadings and mass killings in Iraq in June.
Mr Thorne and his brother Shayden moved to Saudi Arabia 19 years ago for their father's work, AAP reported.
Their mother, who lives in the Perth suburb of Thornlie and is divorced from their father, said her sons were Aboriginal, Australian citizens but identified primarily as Muslims.
Curtin University terrorism expert Anne Aly, who is based in Perth, said Mr Thorne used to be the leader of Islamic group Millatu Ibrahim AU but she was not sure if it was still functional.
'I think now they're just a bit rag tag, a group of guys that stick together and he's trying to put his thoughts out there now,' Dr Aly told Daily Mail Australia.
Dr Aly said he was intentionally trying to be provocative.
'He's been saying he's very much against democracy - they don't believe in democracy which means they don't believe in voting or Australian rule of law which is pretty typical of the jihadi ideology,' she said.
'The stuff he's put up about supporting the Islamic State, underlying that is this belief system that only those who go and fight – the mujahedeen – are true Muslims or are the best Muslims and that is very much what the Islamic State puts out there.
'That's very extreme to say.'
Dr Aly said Mr Thorne was attention seeking but it was important to expose Mr Thorne's views in order to challenge them.
'If the young people he's speaking to via social media, if that's the only message they're getting, they don't have any other opportunity to get another message they only get that one side,' she said.
'Often their families who might be expressing concern don't know that this is how they started to believe these extreme ideas in the first place.
'But if it's out there in the broad media then there's more opportunity for those young people to hear another viewpoint.'
Videos of Mr Thorne's speeches have been posted to the YouTube channel Islam In Focus Australia over the past few months.
'Our sisters being raped by these filthy Jews and Christians,' he said in one video posted in June.
'Our sisters are in the streets, their bodies are filling the streets, bombs dropping on houses killing women and children.'
In a talk titled Islam and Democracy, posted on August 6, Mr Thorne said: 'No one has a problem with you worshipping Allah [the exulted].
'But when you start speaking against or start speaking the truth, and you start calling people to the way of Allah [the exulted] and proving to them the falsehood of their false deities, and the corruption of their evil systems, this is when people start getting on edge and this is when people see their desires being attacked.'
Last week, Mr Thorne said that reports he and a dozen Perth youths, from various ethnic backgrounds, were associated with the terrorist group ISIS were all part of 'a big misunderstanding' - despite posing in a video with ISIS flags.
'I don't have a group of youth nor Australian reverts, there is some big misunderstanding going on - I don't know why,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
Mr Thorne (left) said he did not know of any 'Australian reverts' while a Perth man, who's believed to be named Matthew Smith (right), claims Islam saved him from a drug addiction
Smith (centre), Thorne (fourth from right) are pictured with others in front of ISIS flags
Mr Thorne wouldn't comment any further but said he will be releasing a video that will be 'a response and clarification to the current situation'.
Although he denied knowing any Australian reverts, a recruitment video shows a ginger-bearded former Curtin University student who converted to Islam, The West Australian reported.
A photo also shows Mr Thorne and the former hip-hop rapper posing together with ISIS flags.
When asked about whether he knew the man, Thorne neither confirmed nor denied knowing him.
The man, allegedly named Matthew Smith but calls himself 'Terry Wrist' - a play on 'terrorist', claims Islam saved him from a drug addiction in Perth in 2006.
In the video, he expresses his invincibility through Islam and encourages others to join him.
'You gonna kill, you won't kill me because Allah says I'm alive, I'm receiving sustenance,' he said in the video.
'So what can you do to me? Absolutely nothing.
'Come to Islam, feel this feeling...come to Islam and you will not regret it.'
He ends his passionate speech with: 'plenty of cold ones in paradise. All you can drink. Can't wait'.
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