Dateline: July 15

This week on Dateline video journalist, Fouad Hady looks at whether ISIS can be stopped in Iraq.

Hady hears from an Iraqi intelligence chief that Australian fighters are amongst the ranks of ISIS as the Sunni fighters advance on the capital, Baghdad.

General Abdel Rahman, the head of Intelligence for Diyala Province, told Fouad: “Fighters come from Afghanistan… Fighters come from America, Britain, Australia…”

The General, who lost both legs in an ISIS assassination attempt earlier this year, warned that Australians fighting with ISIS would pose a significant threat if they were permitted to return to Australia.

“They are fighters who learnt methods of bombing, booby trapping, assassinations, kidnapping, and they, in my view, will create havoc in their countries.”

Fouad Hady spoke to General Rahman after filming on the front lines of a battle between ISIS fighters and an army of Shia militia drawn from supporters of the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Amongst Moqtada’s so-called “Peace Brigade”, Fouad finds a group of suicide bombers, wired with explosives and ready to commit suicide in an effort to stop the advancing ISIS forces.

One young man tells Fouad: “(I’m a) suicide bomber. I’ll kill myself for Iraq.”

Other young soldiers tell Fouad that they have sold furniture and jewellery to purchase weapons to fight ISIS.

“We are going to them. God willing, all of us are martyrs,” they say.

Tuesday, 15 July at 9.30pm on SBS ONE