Anger As Oz PM Suggests IS Worse Than Nazis

Australia's prime minister has angered some Jewish leaders by suggesting Islamic State militants are worse than the Nazis during World War Two.

In a radio interview, Tony Abbott appeared to credit the Nazis with a sense of shame for atrocities they committed.

"The Nazis did terrible evil, but they had a sufficient sense of shame to try to hide it," Mr Abbott told Sydney Radio 2GB.

"These people boast about their evil, this is the extraordinary thing," he said of IS fighters.

"They act in the way medieval barbarians acted, only they broadcast it to the world with an effrontery which is hard to credit."

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Robert Goot said there was a "fundamental difference between organised acts of terrorism and a genocide systematically implemented by a state as essential policy".

He said while there is no question that Islamic State is "profoundly evil", Mr Abbott's comments were "injudicious and unfortunate".

He said those behind the genocide acted "not out of any sense of shame, but to avoid being held criminally responsible".

Mr Abbott later defended his comments, saying: "I do make this point, that unlike previous evil-doers, whether we're talking about Stalin, Hitler or whoever, that tried to cover up their evil, this wretched death cult boasts about it."

It is the third time this year gaffe-prone Mr Abbott has upset Jewish Australians with references to Nazis.

He apologised in March for comparing Labor Party leader Bill Shorten to German World War II-era propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

He had described Mr Shorten in Parliament as "the Dr Goebbels of economic policy".

In February, Mr Abbott apologised to parliament for describing a 10% reduction in defence jobs under a former Labor government as a "holocaust of jobs".

The Australian government is expected to agree next week to US requests to carry out airstrikes in Syria as well as Iraq.