Britain Investigates Reports of Citizens' Deaths in Syria

New York Times

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LONDON - Amid growing evidence that dozens of Americans have traveled or sought to travel to Syria to join rebel forces, the British Foreign Office said on Thursday that it was investigating reports that several Britons had died there while fighting ...

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Britain Investigates Reports of Citizens’ Deaths in Syria

By ALAN COWELL

Published: November 21, 2013

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LONDON — Amid growing evidence that dozens of Americans have traveled or sought to travel to Syria to join rebel forces, the British Foreign Office said on Thursday that it was investigating reports that several Britons had died there while fighting on the side of Islamic militants opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

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The reports emerged in The Times of London and on the BBC’s flagship “Newsnight” current affairs program, deepening concerns that Britons who have fought in Syria could return to their own country to radicalize other Muslims. British security officials say 200 to 300 Britons are fighting with jihadist forces in Syria.

Asked to comment on the reports of casualties among them, a British official, speaking in return for anonymity under departmental rules, said the authorities had urged citizens to avoid all travel to Syria because of the “extreme risk” and believed that “moderate Syrians have been explicit that they want aid, not foreign fighters.”

The official said a report in The Times of London on Thursday that four Britons had been killed was being investigated.

The British reports came a day after American intelligence officials said Americans seeking to join the jihadist cause in Syria since 2011 represented a small proportion of an estimated 600 radicalized young Muslims with Western passports who were entering Syria from Europe, North America and Australia. The Western passport holders form only a fraction of the overall tally of foreign fighters, estimated at 6,000 to 11,000.

A man who identified himself as one of the Britons fighting with the rebels, Ifthekar Jaman, 23, a Muslim originally from Bangladesh, told the BBC late Wednesday that he had no intention of returning to Britain and did not represent a threat.

Mr. Jaman said he was part of the radical, Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a dominant force among rebel movements in northern Syria.

“This is the group I am with,” he told the BBC in an Internet phone call. “We are trying to establish the law of God, the law of Allah. This is the duty on me. All these people are suffering. Muslims are being slaughtered.”

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Britain Investigates Reports of Citizens' Deaths in Syria