Australian IS fighter believed to have survived drone attack

Sydney

Canberra was attempting to verify whether an Australian Islamic State group fighter, notorious for being photographed with severed heads, had survived a drone attack after a report said today that he was still alive.

Australian media last week reported that two of the country's most wanted IS jihadists, Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar, were believed killed in a drone strike in Syria.

But highly classified photographs of the Predator strike have only confirmed the death of Elomar, with no indications that Sharrouf also perished, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

"He's got nine lives," an unnamed source told the newspaper. "It was a split-second thing."

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has previously said his government had a "high degree of confidence" that Elomar had been killed in a coalition air strike but could not say the same for Sharrouf.

The Telegraph said the classified photos showed Elomar standing next to a vehicle which was part of a convoy of IS fighters in Syria.

Another image taken moments later showed an explosion as the convoy was hit by a missile, with a third image showing the debris left by the strike.

"Our security and intelligence agencies are working to verify reports that Khaled Sharrouf survived a coalition air strike which is believed to have killed Mohamed Elomar," Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop said today.