CANBERRA, Australia - The Sydney grandfather of a 7-year-old boy pictured clutching the severed head of a Syrian soldier has told newspapers he wants the Australian government to bring the boy home.

Truck driver Peter Nettleton was quoted in the Tuesday edition of The Australian newspaper saying he was "gutted" to see the front page photograph on Monday of his grandson lifting the head with both hands by the hair.

The newspaper reported that the image was taken in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa and posted on Twitter by the boy's convicted terrorist father, Khaled Sharrouf.

Nettleton, father of Sharrouf's Anglo-Australian wife Tara Nettleton, told The Daily Telegraph newspaper that he had thought his five grandchildren had been living in Malaysia.

Nettleton could not be immediately contacted for comment.