Israfil Yilmaz

Salih Yahya Gazali "Israfil" Yilmaz (29 September 1987 – 5 September 2016), was a Turkish-Dutch Islamist militant, who fought in the Syrian Civil War from 2012 or '13 until his death in 2016.

Background
Yilmaz was born on 29 September 1987 to Turkish parents in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, before moving to the Netherlands. Despite claiming dual nationalities, Yilmaz would generally refer to himself and his family as Turks. Following his 21st birthday in 2008, he performed 15 months of military service for the Turkish Armed Forces in Çanakkale. According to Turkish authorities, he was educated as a military instructor with the Gendarmerie. Returning home in late 2010, he enlisted in the Royal Netherlands Army to join the Korps Commandotroepen, but did not meet requirements to do so. He nevertheless finished basic training and spent a short time in an infantry unit before abandoning his professional military career in 2011. In the last months before his move to Syria, Yilmaz worked in an old people's home, often lying to his family and friends that he was planning on settling with relatives in Adana, Turkey.

Jihadi career
Arriving in war-torn Syria in late 2012 or early 2013, Yilmaz initially joined the Muhajireen Brigade (KAM) led by Omar al-Shishani, an ethnically Chechen field commander who pledged allegiance to Daesh in May 2013. Thereafter, Yilmaz went without a group for some time before he joined Jund al-Aqsa (JAA), another Salafi jihadist group that would later be designated as a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom, the United States and Saudi Arabia. Highly active on social media outlets such as Instagram, ASKfm, Twitter and Tumblr under the handle "chechclear" (named after a video in which a Russian soldier is brutally beheaded by Chechen bandits), it was around this time that Yilmaz garnered media notice. In January 2014, the Dutch television program Nieuwsuur aired an interview with Yilmaz and showed him training a small group of foreign fighters.

Several fake Facebook and Twitter accounts under his name emerged thereafter, and Yilmaz repeatedly denied having a Facebook account or having a new Twitter account; having been banned multiple times. It wasn't until late 2014, however, that he joined the ranks of the extremist terrorist organization Daesh, better known as the "Islamic State", and achieved his ultimate notability. On his social media accounts, Yilmaz defended the 2015 attacks in Paris and other terrorist acts around the globe, claiming it was never Daesh who declared open war on the West, but the US and its allies declaring open war on Daesh. He also defended the punishment of homosexuals from an Islamic perspective, and sexual slavery in times of war. Lastly, Yilmaz attended a well-publicized AMA on Reddit and an abortive second attempt, a mere week before his death.

According to the Turkish press, Yilmaz was one of the most prolific ethnic Turkish fighters in Daesh ranks, while the Netherlands had issued an international warrant for his arrest. In 2014, Finnish authorities were informed by Chinese sources that Yilmaz had been training Uyghurs to fight against the People's Liberation Army. Yilmaz himself admitted to training British teenagers to fight in the Syrian conflict.

Death
Up until his death in 2016, Yilmaz claimed to have only been wounded once, in his hand by a YPG or PKK militia sniper (a female, by his own admission) in Hasakah Governorate.

In spite of multiple claims regarding his demise, Israfil Yilmaz is believed to have been killed by a coalition air strike on Raqqa, Syria on 5 September 2016.

Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently and other sources, however, claim he was killed by an air strike near the city of Tabqa, fighting the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces on the 28 January 2017.