The Islamic State group has released the photo of a Bangladeshi youth who was killed fighting for the terror outfit in Iraq.
The photo – published early Thursday in Arabic Nashir channel on Telegram and later in At-Tamkin Bangla website – identifies him as Abu Ismail al-Bengali.
The photo statement does not contain the time of his death, but Swedish-Bangladeshi journalist Tasneem Khalil told the Dhaka Tribune that he had possibly been killed in Iraq earlier this month.
A close family source and a friend of the Finland-based physiotherapist have confirmed his identity to the Dhaka Tribune.
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"Taz Rahman was active in the Finnish jihadi/Islamist scene until 2013/2014 before migrating to Syria,” Tasneem added.
He was last seen in Finland in January 2015, while another Bangladeshi IS fighter, Gazi Kamrus Salam Sohan, met him in Raqqa, Syria between April and May 2015.
Sohan, a former Desco engineer, returned home in mid-May 2015. Upon his arrest in Dhaka, Sohan told investigators that Taz had been working as a physiotherapist at a hospital in Raqqa.
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Hailing from Mohammadpur in Dhaka, Taz is the son-in-law of Abdul Mannan, who leads the Islamic Society of Northern Finland, and also the second in command of the local Social Democratic Party.
According to a close friend of Taz, who requested anonymity, he met Taz in Cyprus in 2000 and left for Finland with his Latvian wife in 2011. They were separated the following year.
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Taz got married to the daughter of Mannan of Olulu city. Later he got close to some Jamaat-e-Islami men including Abdus Salam.
“Taz’s wife may have travelled to Syria with him. They had a small child,” a source close to Taz told the Dhaka Tribune, but could not confirm the information. Taz also co-owned a halal shop in Finland.
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