US-educated Islamic State propagandist killed in Syria

Ahmad Abousamra was killed in January when a missile struck a house where he was staying in Tabqa

A US-Syrian Islamic State militant who helped run an online media campaign disseminating militant material to sympathisers around the world from its self-declared caliphate has been killed in Syria, the group said.

Ahmad Abousamra was killed in early January when a missile struck a house where he was staying north of the Syrian city of Tabqa, according to Islamic State publications including the English language online magazine Rumiyah which he helped set up.



Abousamra, 35, was born in Paris but brought up in Boston, Massachusetts, where he studied computer science, Rumiyah said. He reportedly travelled to Yemen, Pakistan and Iraq before returning to the United States, but fled after his plans for an armed attack with two accomplices on US soil were uncovered.

At the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 he fought in the northern city of Aleppo, before joining the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, and then switching allegiance to Islamic State.

He helped set up publications including Dabiq, the Islamic State online magazine named after a village in Syria. Islamic State fighters were driven from the village six months ago.

The FBI offered $50,000 for information leading to Abousamra's capture after he was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country.