london an indianorigin british isis fighter may have been killed with his wife and five children by coalition airstrikes in syriasiddhartha dhar had been named as a specially designated global terrorist by the us department of state in january 2018dhar is bengali and has relatives in benares and lucknow his mother and siblings who live in north london have not heard from him since june 2017an isis telegram channel run by isis supporters monitored by danish isis phd researcher tore hamming has published a post by green birds of paradise which states abu rumaysah albritani may allah accept him next to it are three photos of dhar when he was alive one masked and pointing a gundhar who would now be 35 was born in london as a hindu to indian parents but switched to islam at the age of 13 and changed his name to abu rumasayah he got radicalised by a childhood friend mohammed mizanur rahman a convicted islamist militant from the same north london neighbourhoodrahman then was a follower of omar bakri muhammad a syrian islamist militant currently in jail in lebanon and friends with anjem choudary a convicted british isis activist and hate preacherdhar became a leader in their banned terrorist organisation almuhajiroun and married islamist activist pakistaniorigin aisha tariq who he barely knew they fled the uk together when she was pregnant in 2014 whilst dhar was on police bail with their four children and went to syria they then had a fifth child out in syriaout in syria dhar is widely believed to have taken up the role of isis executioner jihadi john who was killed by drone strikes in 2015a whatsapp message from an isis fighter in syria that toi has seen states dhar long passed away to the green gardens of paradise and he and his family were killed long agobut significantly nether the message nor the telegram post show him deadwe do not know for sure if he has been killed it could be a trick trying to convince us he is dead hamming saidsometimes it is done to protect the fighter if he is highprofile then it takes the pressure off him there was a famous case of one of the terrorists behind the november 2015 paris attacks who isis announced had been killed in libya and then he emerged in that attack hamming addedthese messages do not have any details of where how or when he diedno official bodies are tracking the deaths of foreign fighters and many destroy their identities after reaching syriaa spokesperson for operation inherent resolve the usled coalition partners conducting airstrikes in the region told toi they do not keep records of individuals killed so there is no way they could verify if dhar is dead or alivethere are foreign fighters left in syria spread out across the desert between syria and iraq hiding in different places hemming said isis is changing its strategy and going back to insurgency and hiding the whole senior leadership