British medical students who joined IS killed in Iraq
TWO British medical students have been killed in Iraq after leaving their university studies in Sudan to join Islamic State.
Ahmed Sami Khider, from south London, reportedly died in a gun battle at the weekend after the convoy in which he was travelling was attacked.
The 25-year- old is thought to have been fleeing the city of Mosul when the vehicles were hit by gunfire.
The stature of the former grammar school student and son of doctor as a senior recruiter for IS and has been a major cause of concern because of his possible influence in persuading others to join.
Hisham Fadlallah, from Nottingham, who was a student at the same university, is also thought to have been killed but it is not yet known if he died in the same incident, the BBC reported.
The pair, who studied together, were part of a large group of students who had left a university in Sudan to join IS.
Up to 22 British students who were training as doctors and other medical professionals at the University of Medical Sciences and Technology in Sudan are understood to have joined the terrorist organisation in Syria, but up to a third are now thought to be dead, according to the Daily Telegraph. Khider’s sister, Nada, who joined IS with her brother, is understood to be alive after she remained at IS’s stronghold in Raqqa, Syria.
Khider, a former student at Wallington County Grammar School in south London, graduated in medicine from the Sudanese university in July 2014.
The following year he was among nine students from the institution – including seven Britons, who reportedly left to join IS in Syria. At least four have been killed.
Khider reportedly appeared in an IS propaganda film in which he urged Western viewers to ‘use your skills and come here’ in 2015.
His parents have travelled to Khartoum, Sudan, to mourn his death. Security services estimate that around 850 Britons have travelled to Syria or Iraq, and a number of these are said to have been killed, including two deliberately targeted in drone strikes because they were believed to be plotting attacks on Britain.
Last week, Briton Ronald Fiddler, who had been given compensation by the UK for his detention at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, blew himself up in a suicide bomb attack on Iraqi forces.
British Major General Rupert Jones, deputy commander for the Combined Joint Task Force coalition, has said the number of foreign fighters joining IS had fallen by up to 90 per cent, because it was harder to reach Iraq and Syria and the reality of going there had made it unappealing.
The Foreign Office said it was unable to confirm the deaths.