A British Daesh fighter, killed in a suicide attack in Iraq, is reported to be a 27-year-old Yorkshireman from Huddersfield who previously attended Bradford College.
The man, fighting under the nom du guerre Abu Musa al-Britani, is believed to be Mohammed Rizwan Awan, as reported by the BBC.
It is understood that, in early 2015, Awan and his wife left their family in the UK, telling them that they were moving to Saudi Arabia.
However, when images of the latest Daesh suicide bomber were circulated, the Awan family said they ‘knew in their hearts’ it was their son.
Daesh social media accounts confirmed the death, in the al-Anbar province west of Iraqi capital Baghdad, and claimed ‘nearly 30’ people died in the blast.
Awan’s family told the Daily Mail that their relative showed no signs of radicalisation before he disappeared in May 2015 and that he was a ‘bright, educated young man’.
Whilst in the UK, Awan worked for British Gas in Leeds and was once violently attacked as an innocent bystander in a gang war when he was 18.
Archived media reports describe how he was appallingly attacked by a man with a machete and suffered nine wounds to his body, according to the Huddersfield Daily Examiner.
He was one of five suicide bombers who rammed explosives-laden vehicles into a military checkpoint.
While Daesh themselves claimed 30 Iraqi soldiers died in the attack, a military spokesperson confirmed six dead and nine injured.
According to a statement by the jihadist group in which it claimed responsibility for the attack, several foreigners were among the terrorists, including the Briton.
