A British man, dressed for martyrdom in a screenshot from video said to have been recorded in Syria last week before a suicide attack. Peering into the camera and shaking his head slowly, a British man in Syria, dressed in the white robe worn by suicide bombers, apologized for being at a loss for words. “Sheikh, I can’t speak,†the man said to the militant acting as his translator in video apparently recorded last week, just before he got behind the wheel of an explosives-laden truck. “My tongue’s got like a knot in it,†he explained, “tell him I can’t speak.â€
Video said to have been recorded last week in Syria showed a Briton just before a suicide attack.
The man, whose appearance matches that of Abdul Waheed Majeed, a 41-year old father of three from the English county of West Sussex who traveled to Syria recently to work with refugee children, seemed to be politely declining a request to speak in his own martyrdom video. “What I say should come from the heart,†he demurred, “I can’t do it.â€
The video, which seems to have been recorded by a Russian-speaking jihadist brigade, then cuts to images of the truck, bearing the black flags of the Qaeda-linked Islamist militants Jabhat al-Nusra, slowly heading towards its target, identified by the militants as Aleppo Central Prison. Minutes later, there is a large explosion in the distance and shouts of celebration, although the truck might have exploded before reaching its target.
The edited, 46-minute clip, discovered on YouTube Friday by Charles Lister, a fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, also includes battle footage, said to have been recorded in a struggle for control of Aleppo Central Prison, and ends with what looks like a setback for the Islamists â€" graphic images of the death of a militant commander. (The original footage was removed from YouTube for violating its terms of service on violence, but a copy was saved by the British blogger Eliot Higgins, who writes as Brown Moses.)
According to Mr. Lister, the commander seems to have been Saifullah al-Shishani, a veteran of jihadist brigades in Chechnya and Afghanistan, whose death was reported last week on social networks.
If Mr. Majid’s participation in the attack is confirmed, his would be the first known case of a British suicide bomber in Syria. As Britain’s Channel 4 News reported, the police searched his family home in the West Sussex town of Crawely on Wednesday and relatives expressed shock at the accusations.
Channel 4 News reported Feb. 12 on the police searches of the British man’s home, and included video of the truck bomb released by the Nusra Front According to a report from The Crawley News, a local paper in his West Sussex hometown, his family lost communication with him about nine days ago but Mr. Majid’s wife was clinging to hope that he is still alive and wasn’t behind the terror attack on the prison.
The extremist cleric Omar Bakri Muhammad, who was expelled from Britain and now lives in Lebanon, told London’s Evening Standard on Thursday that Mr. Majid was one of his followers, acting as his driver and helping to organize talks in Crawley.
One of the two knife-wielding assailants who killed an off-duty soldier in London last year, and then calmly spoke to witnesses while waiting for the police to arrive, was later identified as part of the cleric’s circle.
The attack in Syria was part of a long campaign by militants from the Nusra Front, who are trying to free fellow fighters incarcerated inside.
More footage of the explosives-laden truck going on its way, and of covering fire from Swedish jihadists, was posted on the Tumblr blog of a Dutch citizen of Turkish descent who quit the Royal Netherlands Army to train militants in Syria.
In a post on the suicide attack the Dutch jihadist blogger wrote that the man he referred to by his nom de guerre, Abu Sulaiman al-Britani, was “one of the most funniest, most genuine brothers I have ever met. He volunteered to do this operation to make a way for the groups to assault and finally free those of the prisoners still left alive. A noble sacrifice for a noble cause. May Allah accept him as a Shaheed for he paid the ultimate price.â€
Robert Mackey also remixes the news on Twitter @robertmackey.
Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.
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