Unmasked, the British IS cell that proves he’s so wrong
A JIHADI who threatened a wave of new terror attacks in Italy and Turkey is part of a cell of British extremists, it was revealed yesterday.
Ibrahim Hussein appeared in an Islamic State propaganda video in which he warned that the group had ‘eyes on Constantinople [Istanbul] and Rome’.
Friends said that the aspiring rapper from South London had travelled to Syria with two teenage friends, including a former star pupil at a prestigious Church of England school.
Zubair Nur was an assistant head boy at the Chelsea Academy in West London but is feared to have been radicalised by Hussein before they travelled to join Islamic State three years ago.
The IS video of Hussein appeared to have been filmed earlier this year, before the terror group lost control of its ‘capital’ in Syria.
As the US-backed coalition closed in on Raqqa, Hussein was filmed addressing President Donald Trump in an apparent warning against advancing on the IS strongholds in Syria and Iraq.
He said: ‘This is a message to the new pharaoh of today, Donald Trump. You might have your eyes on Raqqa and Mosul but we have our eyes on Constantinople and Rome.’
Hussein appeared wild-eyed and gaunt as he snarled: ‘We will slaughter you in your own houses.’ The jihadi then turned away from the camera and fired an assault rifle through an open window behind him. A city skyline could be seen through the window, suggesting the scene was filmed in Raqqa itself.
It is not known if Hussein survived the coalition assault on Raqqa, and Nur’s whereabouts are unknown.
Nur from Fulham, South-West London, was 19 when his mother Muna contacted police to say that he had stopped going to university lectures.
He had attended a Muslim private school, the fee-paying London East Academy in Tower Hamlets, before leaving in 2012 to study for his A-levels at the Chelsea Academy, a Church of England school. Friends said he started to show signs of radicalisation while studying for his GCSEs, although the London East Academy said there was no evidence he held extremist views during his time there, and described him as a ‘balanced pupil’ who loved football. After leaving the Chelsea Academy he began a degree course in petroleum geology at Royal Holloway, University of London, but stopped attending lectures after only a few months.
His Facebook page showed he had ‘liked’ pages for radical preachers, including UK cleric Abu Waleed and Anwar al-Awlaki,
‘We will slaughter you in your houses’
an alleged former senior recruiter for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but also British comedian Michael McIntyre.
A friend who knew both Nur and Hussein said he believed Hussein had helped to radicalise Nur.
Speaking anonymously to ITV News, he said: ‘He [Hussein] was a leader. We had a group of kids in our class and he was the ringleader. He was always orchestrating chaos.’
Both men were keen footballers in their teenage years and the friend said Hussein had left a message for his football team before he left Britain.
The friend said: ‘He messaged saying, “Brothers if you don’t see me in paradise ask for me”. Then he left the group. At the time we didn’t think much of it. We just thought he couldn’t make it.’
Hussein and Nur left Britain with another friend, college dropout Gezim Klokoci, who was nicknamed ‘Jihadi Jackass’ after he was filmed nearly blowing himself up with a suicide belt in Syria. Klokoci, 19, from Finsbury Park in North London, was reported to have been killed in fighting in the Syrian city of Palmyra last year.
A student who flew to Syria to fight Islamic State was charged with terrorism offences when he returned after police found a bomb-making manual he had downloaded from his university library, a court heard. Joshua Walker had downloaded a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook, which includes instructions for preparing military-grade explosives, letter bombs and advice on switches, fuses and even phone hacking, as part of a role-play game at the University of Aberystwyth, Birmingham Crown Court was told.
When he was held by police after flying back into Gatwick from Turkey, officers searched his student bedsit and discovered the manual in a drawer under his bed, prosecutor Robin Sellers said.
Walker, 27, told officers he forgot to burn a copy of a terrorism manual because he got ‘absolutely plastered’ and ‘smoked a lot’ of cannabis.
Mr Sellers alleged that Walker had two opportunities to dispose of the document: When students burnt documents after the roleplay, and when he later moved house between academic years.
Walker, of Bristol, denies a charge of possession of a record of terrorist information, between May 2015 and June 2016, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing for an act of terror. The trial continues.