Sunday, July 10, 2016

first british female muslim 'dies in air strike'

  • Rowan Kamal Zine El Abidine abandoned her studies to join ISIS last year
  • She is the first UK female recruit to be killed by an air strike, reports claim
  • Media in Sudan did not specify exactly where in Iraq the strike took place
  • Her family set up 'mourning tent' in Sudan where relatives can pay respects
Rowan Kamal Zine El Abidine, 22, died on Thursday, but her husband and baby daughter are thought to have survived
Rowan Kamal Zine El Abidine, 22, died on Thursday, but her husband and baby daughter are thought to have survived
A medical student who joined the Islamic State terror group has become the first British female recruit to be killed by an air strike in Iraq, reports claim.

Rowan Kamal Zine El Abidine, 22, died on Thursday, but her husband and baby daughter are thought to have survived.

The reports by media in Sudan – where El Abidine's family are from – did not specify where in Iraq the strike took place. 

But IS's foreign recruits there mainly live in the terror group's main base in Mosul for safety reasons.

Before joining IS, El Abidine left Britain to attend the University of Medical Sciences and Technology in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

Her family have set up a 'mourning tent' near their house in the city's Al-Sajana area where relatives can pay respects, the Sudan Tribune reported.

El Abidine made headlines last year when it was reported that she and eight other British students from her university had suddenly abandoned their studies to join IS. 

They flew to Istanbul and then travelled by land to the Turkish border town of Gaziantep. From there, they crossed into the IS-controlled town of Tal Abyad, Syria.

The medics, all undergraduates in their late teens or early-20s, used smartphone messaging service WhatsApp to tell their stunned families they had arrived.

It is thought they planned to work in hospitals controlled by IS.

The other Britons were Nada Sami Kader, Tasneem Suleyman Huseyin, Ismail Hamadoun, Tamer Ahmed Ebu Sebah, Mohamed Osama Badri Mohammed, Hisham Fadlallah, Sami Ahmed Kadir and Lena Abdelgadir – whose father is an orthopaedic surgeon in Norfolk.

The Foreign Office could not confirm El Abidine's death.


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