Sniper who wanted to defeat IS dies clearing land mines in freed capital

A British man who had been fighting Islamic State in Syria has been killed clearing mines in the newly liberated city of Raqqa.

Jac Holmes, 24, from Bournemouth, had been battling against the extremist group with the Kurdistan People’s Protection Units (YPG) since January 2015.

He is the sixth Briton to die on Syrian soil.

His mother, Angie Blannin, who lives in Kent, said she was “extremely proud” of her son, who was killed on Monday and had no previous military experience. 0 Jac Holmes’s mother said ‘he stood up for what he believed’

“He stood up for what he believed in and he had the courage of his convictions to go out and do something where he thought that the West were not doing enough,” she said. “To defeat Isis, he felt that it was not just a Syrian problem, or Middle Eastern problem, it was a world problem.

“He wanted to go and do something about that and not just be a keyboard warrior.”

Ms Blannin was informed of his death just hours after it happened.

She said that according to Kurdish officials, her only child had been clearing mines to help civilians within Raqqa.

“That wasn’t his job, his role, he was a sniper, but that is what he was doing,” she said.

Raqqa had been under IS control for more than threeand-a-half years until the city’s liberation last week.