Neil Prakash, the Islamic State -operative behind a string of failed domestic terrorist plots, has been killed by the US military as part of a series of targeted assassinations that have also claimed the life of Australian woman Shadi Jabar, the sister of Parramatta shooter Farhad Jabar.
In what is being hailed as a significant blow against Islamic State's overseas terrorist arm, US military officials have told the Australian government that -Prakash and Jabar were killed in two separate airstrikes aimed at -Islamic State operatives. 
Prakash, the most senior Australian fighting with Islamic State, was killed last Friday along with about a dozen fighters in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
It is understood Prakash was attending what authorities believe was an Islamic State planning meeting when the building he was in was obliterated by a US bomb.
A government official last night confirmed Prakash's death, saying Prakash had called for "lone-wolf attacks against the US", as well as Australia, a -detail that no doubt helped to earn him his spot on a list of US -assassination targets.
"He has appeared in ISIL propaganda videos and magazines and has actively recruited Aus-tralian men, women and children, and encouraged acts of terrorism," the official said.
"He is considered to be Aus-tralia's most prominent ISIL -recruiter. "His death disrupts and degrades ISIL's ability to recruit vulnerable people in our community to conduct terrorist acts." Only a week before Prakash's death, Shadi Jabar Khaled -Mohammed was killed in a US airstrike in al Bab, northern Syria.
Shadi Jabar was the sister of Farhad Jabar, the 15-year-old terrorist who shot NSW police worker Curtis Cheng as he left Parramatta police station last year in a ISIL-inspired killing.
Just a day before her brother shot Chang, Shadi Jabar fled the country, apparently bound for Syria.
It can now be revealed Shadi Jabar entered Syria and was killed with her husband, Abu Sa'ad -al-Sudani, understood to be the -target of the strike.
Both Shadi Jabar and her husband were considered by auth-orities as "active recruiters of foreign fighters and were -inspiring -attacks against Western interests".
American officials are said to be highly confident Prakash and Jabar were killed.
The deaths of the two Aus-tralians is part of an aggressive -coalition strategy to take out senior Islamic State operatives and decision-makers, using airstrikes and armed drones.
As The Australian exclusively reported last year, Prakash had been placed on a US assassination list because of his role in radicalising young Muslims and encouraging them to conduct terrorist attacks in Australia and other Western countries.
It is understood authorities observed changes in Prakash's behaviour after publication of the story, which they believed reflected his paranoia about his own -security.
The Australian has been told Prakash's concerns extended to the point where he moved cities, leaving the Islamic State's self--declared capital of Raqqa, in Syria, and moving to Mosul, Iraq.
Of about 110 Australians ASIO estimates are fighting in Syria, Prakash was considered by far the most dangerous.
The former apprentice mechanic from Melbourne was allegedly involved in encouraging and planning a string of failed attacks in Melbourne last year. One, planned for Anzac Day 2015, involved running down a police -officer, beheading him, stealing his weapon and going on a shooting rampage.
Prakash was also believed to be in communication with a 16-year-old Sydney boy arrested last month who was allegedly caught trying to buy a gun online for another Anzac Day attack.
Prakash, the son of Fijian and Cambodian migrants, arrived in Syria in 2013, shortly after he converted to Islam in Melbourne's now-defunct Al-Furqan Islamic Centre.Along with a handful of other Western jihadis, Prakash quickly rose through the ranks of Islamic State, becoming the most senior Australian fighting with ISIL.