British Militant Carried Out Suicide Attack in Iraq, ISIS Says
They called him Abu Zakariya al-Britani — the surname means “the Briton” — and they say he blew himself up on Monday in an attack at a village southwest of Mosul, Iraq. The claim, in a communiqué from the Islamic State, immediately revived fears about foreign fighters who have moved to Syria or Iraq to […]Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura writes for The New York Times:
They called him Abu Zakariya al-Britani — the surname means “the Briton” — and they say he blew himself up on Monday in an attack at a village southwest of Mosul, Iraq.
The claim, in a communiqué from the Islamic State, immediately revived fears about foreign fighters who have moved to Syria or Iraq to join the group’s ranks. But in Britain, it prompted even more troubling allegations.
Several British news organizations — including the BBC, The Times of London and The Guardian — reported Tuesday evening that the man was Jamal Malik al-Harith, a native of Manchester, England, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001; detained by the United States in the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, from 2002 to 2004; and released to Britain, where the government later awarded him 1 million pounds, about $1.25 million at current exchange rates, to settle a lawsuit.
