"The community is in utter shock and a sense of disbelief that a young lad from Yorkshire is said to (have) become Britain's youngest suicide bomber. ISIS is running a sophisticated social media campaign and the community is concerned their faith is being used by hate preachers and internet groomers to manipulate their religion,"
Community leaders in the hometown of a 17-year-old boy, believed to have become UK's youngest-ever suicide bomber fighting for the dreaded ISIS, have expressed "utter shock" at the news, slamming the militants of acting like "paedophiles" through calculated grooming of the youth.
Talha Asmal from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, one of four suicide bombers who reportedly detonated a vehicle fitted with explosives near an oil refinery north of Baghdad on Saturday, was "groomed" online by the militant group.
ISIS posted pictures of him on social media though police is yet to confirm Asmal's death, which if turns out to be true, would make him UK's youngest known suicide bomber.
Qari Asim, an imam at the Makkah Masjid mosque, who was awarded for his efforts to build bridges between communities, said ISIS leaders were acting "like paedophiles" by grooming young men.
"The community is in utter shock and a sense of disbelief that a young lad from Yorkshire is said to (have) become Britain's youngest suicide bomber. ISIS is running a sophisticated social media campaign and the community is concerned their faith is being used by hate preachers and internet groomers to manipulate their religion," he was quoted as saying by the Guardian.
Dewsbury councillor Masood Ahmed said Asmal was "no different" from other teenagers, and said people in the town were "devastated".
"Communities are devastated and shocked to hear the news," he said, adding there were "no signs, no symptoms" that Asmal had been groomed by extremists online - as his family now believe he was.
Lorraine Barker, executive principal of Mirfield Free Grammar and Sixth Form, where Asmal was studying, told the Times he was a "conscientious student", and staff and students were in "complete shock" when he travelled to Syria with fellow Dewsbury teenager Hassan Munshi in March.]
Asmal's family, believed to be of Pakistani origin, said images released through an ISIS-linked Twitter account showing a young man named as Abu Yusuf Al Britani appear to depict their son and have described it as a "tragedy".
One of the pictures show Asmal smiling as he stands by a black SUV giving the militant group's signature one-finger salute while another shows the teenager clutching a rifle as he sits cross-legged on a mat alongside two other armed men.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Asmal's family said he was a "loving, kind, caring and affable teenager" whose tender years and naivety were, it seems... exploited by persons unknown who, hiding behind the anonymity of the world wide web, targeted and befriended Talha and engaged in a process of deliberate and calculated grooming of him." "It appears that Talha fell under the spell of individuals who continued to prey on his innocence and vulnerability to the point where if the press reports are accurate he was ordered to his death by so-called ISIS handlers and leaders too cowardly to do their own dirty work."
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