A 21-year-old British student who was held captive in Iraq after allegedly trying to join a terrorist group has been released and is now back in the UK. Urslaan Khan, from Yarm, Teesside, was detained by a Kurdish group in early November near the northern city of Irbil.
Urslaan Khan, good British name that
It has now been revealed he was handed over to the Americans on 18 December and he is now believed to be back in the North East. After he was picked up, Kurdish forces told The Times newspaper they believed he travelled to Iraq to join Ansar al-Islam.
Now there’s a smart career move.
The US has designated the group as its main "terrorist adversary" in postwar Iraq.
Well, one of them.
Urslaan’s father, Abdul Khan, has always denied his son was intending to fight for the Iraqis against coalition forces, and described him as an adventurer rather than a terrorist.
I’d classify being grabbed by the Kurds as a possible Ansar member as a adventure.
Mr Khan was taking Arabic Studies at Manchester University’s Department of Middle Eastern Studies and was spending his third year at Egypt’s University of Alexandria.
Gee, nothing in this backround to make me think he was a terrorist. |