A Jordanian parliamentarian's son died carrying out a suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State militant group in Iraq this week, Jordanian media said Friday. Independent legislator Mazen al-Dhalaein was quoted as telling the Khaberni website that his son, Mohammed, who went by the name of Abu Baraa, had died in Iraq. He said he learned of his son's death after seeing his photo on social media accounts linked to IS.
Dhalaein said his 23-year-old son had been studying medicine in Ukraine before deciding to join IS this summer, travelling to Iraq through Turkey and Syria. "He considered me and his mother to be apostates and was trying to convince us to join IS," he added.
The MP said he had last heard from Mohammed in August when he sent a message that he "had been signed up for a suicide attack soon". In a statement posted on Twitter on Wednesday, IS claimed a triple car bombing on the northern outskirts of Ramadi, a city west of Baghdad under IS control since May. Iraqi military sources confirmed suicide attacks in the area Tuesday but were unable to identify the bombers.
"Three suicide car bombs targeted Iraqi security forces in their progress in Al-Jaraishi", an army colonel told AFP. "The security forces repelled the attacks using Russian-made Kornet missiles," he said. Musa Abdullat, a leading Jordanian lawyer for Islamist groups, told AFP the legislator's son was killed Tuesday in an attack on the Iraqi army. Up to 4,000 Jordanians are members of jihadist groups in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, Abdullat said. "Eighty percent of them have joined IS," he said, adding that 420 Jordanian jihadists had been killed in Iraq and Syria since 2011.
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