Briton says he has been fighting alongside militants in Iraq

August 7, 2014

A Briton who claims he is fighting alongside militants in Syria has said he also recently went to Iraq to be at the “forefront” of the conflict there. The man, who calls himself Abu Abdullah, said he had been involved in fighting in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. It is the first evidence to emerge of British fighters travelling to take part in the conflict in Iraq. UK officials say up to 500 Britons may have travelled to the Middle East, but most are believed to be in Syria. Abu Abdullah, a 20-year-old British Eritrean man who is a convert to Islam, told BBC Two’s Newsnight programme he was “one of the few” British fighters to have fought in Iraq. He said he had travelled to Syria to fight in the conflict there around nine months ago.

Abu Abdullah said: “The people loved to see the heads of Nusayris (derogatory term for Alawites) on spikes and I feel no sympathy for them because they are enemies of Allah”. The Briton is also understood to have taken part in an IS promotional video posted online. In it, he said: “You are not living under oppression, you are not living under rule, we don’t need any democracy, and we don’t need any communism or anything like that, all we need to Sharia.”

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