I want to die on Syria's front line: London jihadist

A British Muslim convert from east London is fighting on the front line of the battle for Aleppo after joining the country's rebels in their struggle against Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The jihadist, who lived in Walthamstow, has joined an Islamist brigade as it fights for control of Syria's second city.

While he refused to give his real name, he agreed to speak to The Daily Telegraph in a field hospital behind the front line in the contested Aleppo suburb of Salaheddin. The Londoner, who called himself "Abu Yacoub" - father of Jacob - is the first proven case of a Briton being where the fighting is fiercest in Syria.

He was with an Iraqi friend, Hassan, who had received a minor bullet wound in the leg, and was taking him to the field hospital for treatment.

He disclosed that he had converted to Islam five years ago and had arrived in Syria earlier this year to join the revolutionary forces seeking to overthrow President Assad.

"I will stay here until I die," he said. "I want to die in Syria. We must all taste paradise, and when that happens is decided already."

To the background sound of tank shells hitting the buildings of Salaheddin, Abu Yacoub agreed to speak a little about himself.

Clearly nervous at being discovered by a reporter, he spoke in an accent that was a mixture of East London and a jokey version of gangster rap and said he came from Walthamstow.

"The name I give might be a lie," he said, when calling himself Abu Yacoub. "Everything I say might be a lie."

He mixed humour with smiling threats, feigning joy at meeting a fellow Londoner with attempts to have reporters thrown out of the clinic. He began to chat about Hackney and Walthamstow, but then suddenly stopped. He appeared uninterested in the Olympics.

He and Hassan had been fighting with Ahrar al-Sham, "Free Men of Syria", the biggest Islamist group in Aleppo. It is estimated to have 500 members.

By contrast, the Liwa al-Tawhid - Unity Brigade - which is leading the battle and is made up largely of people from the towns and villages in the north of the province, says it has up to 8,000 men, and makes up almost 80% of the total force.

Abu Yacoub said he arrived in Syria four months ago. "I came to help the people here," he said.

"Allah knows," he said, when asked whether he was married, and other details of his personal life. But he said that his mother, although she was Christian, knew where he was and what he was doing and was "cool" with it. "She is a good woman," he said.

The Daily Telegraph has since learnt that he was born in Tanzania but came to Britain as a child.

He refused to allow himself to be photographed, adding with a laugh: "If you take a photograph maybe it's very bad for your reputation. Maybe you will die tomorrow."

Members of Ahrar al-Sham are largely followers of Salafi Islam, the conservative, but not necessarily violent, version followed in Saudi Arabia. It is less feared than Jubhat al-Nusra, which is said to be allied to al-Qaeda and which announced its existence this year with a claim of responsibility for a number of bombing attacks on regime targets.

Despite concerns in the West and among their own ranks, rebel leaders say they accept help from Islamist groups and foreigners, and will deal with the consequences later.

However, even within the radical Islamist brigades, foreign fighters are a small minority and mostly from Arab countries, including Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco.

Abdulrahman al-Salameh, a Jubhat al-Nusra leader in Aleppo, said his ranks contained foreign fighters and Syrian fighters who had fought the Americans in Iraq, a particular concern for the West because of that cause's takeover by al-Qaeda. But he also said he knew of British fighters in other brigades.

John Cantlie, a freelance journalist who was kidnapped briefly by a group of international jihadists who seized the Bab al-Hawa border crossing last month, said some of his captors had British accents.

The role of foreign fighters is hotly disputed in rebel ranks. One story - possibly apocryphal - is that two Indian Muslim jihadists who arrived in Homs saying they wanted to die for Allah were immediately sent by secular FSA leaders to attack one of the toughest checkpoints in the city. The checkpoint was destroyed and the two men were killed, which meant, said the secular activist who told the story, that everyone was happy.

But many media activists and rebels fear they are a liability, adding little to the cause and attracting suspicion among potential backers in the West.

Watching "Abu Yacoub" and Hassan return laughing to the front, one Syrian fighter at the hospital snarled. "Why have they come here?" he asked. "We don't need them. They come for jihad but some of them are extremists and here in Syria we are not extremists."