Thursday, December 11, 2014

Scots jihadi tells family: ‘I love Allah more’



Scots jihadi tells family: ‘I love Allah more’

http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/scots-jihadi-tells-family-i-love-allah-more-1-3630629#


Facebook screen grab of the message posted by Abdul Raqib Amin onto his sister's Facebook page. Picture: Hemedia
Facebook screen grab of the message posted by Abdul Raqib Amin onto his sister's Facebook page. Picture: Hemedia
  • by JON HEBDITCH

A SCOTS jihadi has said he is alive and well in an online message to family, telling them his heart “is not made of stone”. 

IS militant Abdul Raqib Amin, 26, told his family on social media that he misses them, but that he loves Allah more.

He left Britain earlier this year to join Islamic jihadists, who have killed thousands of Syrians, publicly beheaded British and American journalists and brutally murdered an aid worker.

His latest contact with relatives indicates he is still alive, despite unconfirmed reports that he had died in battle several weeks ago.

After leaving the UK, Amin, from Aberdeen, said he had no intention of returning home and would continue to fight until he was killed.

His friends spoke of their shock and disbelief that a man who they thought was just “one of the guys” had become so radicalised.

In a recent message to his family, Amin insists he is not completely heartless, despite having warned people in Britain that IS “are not going to attack them ...yet”.

He said: “Oh my family, do not think my heart has become a stone.

“I do miss you, I love you, but I love Allah more.”

The message was revealed on his sister’s social media account, attached to a now-notorious picture Amin in which he grins at the camera, holding an assault rifle.

He signs the message off from “Abu Baraa”, a name Amin has been fighting under.

The bearded militant in the picture is unrecognisable from the smiling young man photographed when he was living in Aberdeen.

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Amin moved with his family from Bangladesh to the city’s Froghall area when he was 10.
He spent two years at Sunnybank Primary School then moved to St Machar Academy.

After Amin completed his second year at the academy, his father moved him back to Bangladesh because - according to a friend - he was becoming “too westernised”.

When he returned to the Scotland after two years, his friends noticed there had been a change in him, and that he had become more religious.

A friend spoke of how he had played football with Amin just 18 months before he was exposed as an extremist.

The next time he saw him was in the 13-minute IS propaganda film, There Is No Life Without Jihad, in which Amin was encouraging would-be fighters to join him to wage Holy War.

He said in the video: “Forget everyone. Read the Koran, read the instruction of life. Find out what is jihad.

“Are you willing to sacrifice the fat job you’ve got, the big car, the family you have?

“Are you willing to sacrifice this, for the sake of Allah? If you do Allah will give you back 700 times more.

“All my brothers living in the West, I know how you feel. When I used to live there, in the heart you feel depressed. The cure for the depression is jihad.

“All my brothers, come to jihad. Feel the honour we are feeling. Feel the happiness we are feeling.”
Amin has defended his actions, saying that there is no place he would rather be.

He said he told his family where he had gone after he arrived in Syria.

It is unlikely he will ever be able to return to the country he once called home, and he has had his assets frozen under counter-terrorism laws.

He said: “I left the UK to fight for the sake of Allah - to give everything I have for the sake of Allah to establish the seat of Allah in the land.”

Amin said he first became aware of IS through Twitter and that he had in no way been radicalised in Aberdeen.

He said: “In the Aberdeen mosque there is not one person with the same mentality as me. They don’t agree with jihad. We are not scared of anyone. People in the UK are scared we are going to attack them - we are not going to attack them... yet.”

Mosque leaders previously confirmed that Amin had attended but condemned his actions in the Middle East.

SEE ALSO
Don’t be homewrecker, jihadi Scots tells ‘sisters’
Dead Scots jihadi ‘still alive’ says friend

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