Briton fighting IS killed in Syria

A British man who went to Syria to fight against the Islamic State (IS) has been killed in Raqqa, a month after Kurdish commanders declared the "total liberation" of the terror group's de facto capital, the media reported on Thursday.

Oliver Hall, 24, from Portsmouth, is believed to have been clearing mines in the city with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) when one exploded near him, reports the Guardian.

Mark Campbell, co-chair of the Kurdish Solidarity Campaign, said: "It is with deep regret and sorrow that I can confirm via Kurdish sources in Syria that Ollie Hall, a UK national who travelled to Syria in August to help in the liberation of the IS city of Raqqa with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), fell on November 25 from an explosion...

"Our deepest sympathies are with the family and friends of Ollie at this time."

According to Campbell, Hall travelled to Syria from his home on the outskirts of Portsmouth last August where he underwent the YPG's mandatory month-long training programme, in which new recruits learn basic Kurdish, weaponry and battlefield tactics on top of a crash course in the socialist and feminist ideology of the YPG.

He was then assigned to an infantry division, which comprised a mixture of Kurdish and international fighters. There, he was given the nom-de-guerre Canser Zagros, the Guardian reported.

Hall is believed to be the seventh British citizen killed with the YPG in Syria since the first foreign volunteers joined the fight against the IS in 2014, and the second since the liberation of Raqqa.

--IANS

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