Alleged Islamic State recruiter and former Melbourne man Neil Prakash has reportedly been arrested six months after he was supposedly killed in Iraq.
The New York Times reports Mr Prakash, whose name has been mentioned in court actions against local terror suspects, was only injured in a drone strike in Mosul in April, not killed as previously announced.
"In the last few weeks, however, a Middle Eastern government arrested Mr. Prakash, another senior American military official said," the New York Times reported on Friday.
In Canberra in May, the death of the IS operative behind a string of failed Australian terror plots, was hailed as a major breakthrough in the fight against domestic terrorism.
At the time Mr Prakash was reported as killed he was allegedly involved in a number of IS activities including propaganda videos and recruitment, said Attorney General George Brandis, who declared Prakash "the most dangerous Australian".
"Prakash was a very important, high-value target. He was the most dangerous Australian involved with ISIL in the Middle East," he told the ABC in May.
"He was actively involved both in recruitment and in encouraging domestic terrorist events in Australia; he was the principle Australian reaching back from the Middle East into Australia - and in particular into terrorist networks in both Melbourne and Sydney, encouraging lone wolf attacks and more sophisticated attacks. So he was the person of greatest concern to us."
Counter-terrorism expert Greg Barton said at the time that Prakash was more a mouthpiece for IS rather than a mastermind - but he was significant due to his links to a failed Anzac Day terror plot in Melbourne and the shooting death of NSW police worker Curtis Cheng in western Sydney last year.
Prakash had appeared in IS propaganda videos and magazines and recruited Australians, including children, and encouraged acts of terrorism.
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Counter Terrorism Michael Keenan told SBS it was "longstanding practice" not to comment on matters of intelligence or law enforcement operations.
"The Government reported Prakash’s death in May on the basis of advice from the US government that he had been killed in an air strike," Minister Keenan said.
"The Government’s capacity to confirm reports of deaths in either Syria or Iraq is limited. These places are war zones, with many ungoverned spaces.
"There have been people who have been reported dead and are later found to be alive."
-Additional reporting by David Sharaz
- Watch this documentary about a young Melbourne man who has been through a deradicalisation program. He was recommended to the program by the AFP after having contact online with alleged Islamic State recruiter and former Melbourne man Neil Prakash.
