British filmmaker killed by ISIS terrorists in Syria

A British filmmaker has been killed by Islamic State fighters in Syria while making a documentary about Kurdish fighters, friends have said.

Mehmet Aksoy, 32, from London, who studied filmmaking at Goldsmiths, University of London, travelled from the UK to the Syrian city of Raqqa in June.

Mr Aksoy, who is of Kurdish descent, joined the US-backed Kurdish militant group, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and had been filming them as they fought for the capital of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s so-called caliphate.

Mr Aksoy, who was also known by his Kurdish nom de guerre “Firaz Dag”, was in a compound outside Raqqa when Isil fighters drove up and shot five YPG soldiers who were guarding the base at the checkpoint on Tuesday morning.

The jihadists then drove into the compound and shot Mr Aksoy and a female Kurdish journalist he was standing with.

Hundreds of Mr Aksoy’s friends and family gathered at the Kurdish Community Centre in North London in a vigil to pay tribute last night.

Mr Aksoy is the fifth Briton to be killed in northern Syria by Isil jihadists.

Konstandinos Erik Scurfield, a 25-year-old former Royal Marine from Barnsley and Dean Evans, a 22-year-old dairy farmer from Warminster, were both killed fighting with the YPG.

Ryan Lock, 20, from Chichester, West Sussex, shot himself after he was surrounded by ISIS militants during a fierce firefight in the village of Jaeber near Raqqa.

Twenty-two year-old Luke Rutter, 22, from Birkenhead, was killed in an ISIS ambush in July.

There are thought to be around a dozen Britons fighting in Raqqa, along with other foreign volunteers recruits from across Europe and the US.

Aladdin Sinayic a close friend of Mr Aksoy’s from London, told the BBC: “Mehmet never fought, the plan was never to fight.

“He told me there are better ways. He wanted to tell the stories of the fighters there, he had so much respect for them, and Mehmet was loved by everybody.”

“You were one of the most charming and charismatic people I’ve ever met,” Haje Keli wrote on her Facebook page. “When I found out a few weeks ago that you went to Rojava, I expected to see you back in London for the film festival. Not this, not now. Rest In Peace.”

Source: Telegraph