The family of a British teenager believed to be Britain's youngest suicide bomber said they were "devastated and heartbroken" after ISIS released a picture of the 17-year-old smiling with an ISIS flag in the background, reported CNN.
The Islamic State released photos of Talha Asmal on Saturday and said the Dewsbury teen (that they referred to as Abu Yusuf al-Britani) detonated a vehicle rigged with explosives in the Northern Iraqi town of Baiji.
After news reports surfaced identifying the boy as Asmal, his kin released a statement on Sunday expressing their grief and anger, according to the Guardian and the BBC:
Talha was a loving, kind, caring and affable teenager.
He never harbored any ill will against anybody nor did he ever exhibit any violent, extreme or radical views of any kind.
Talha's tender years and naivety were, it seems however, exploited by persons unknown who, hiding behind the anonymity of the World Wide Web, targeted and befriended Talha, and engaged in a process of deliberate and calculated grooming of him.
Whilst there, it appears that Talha fell under the spell of individuals who continued to prey on his innocence and vulnerability to the point where, if the press reports are accurate, he was ordered to his death by so-called ISIS handlers and leaders too cowardly to do their own dirty work.
We are all naturally utterly devastated and heartbroken by the unspeakable tragedy that now appears to have befallen us.
The boy accompanied his friend, Hassan Munshi, also 17, to Turkey in April, said the family. Members of the teens' families issued an urgent appeal for their return, fearing that they had joined ISIS.
Statements released by the militant organization named Britani (Asmal) as one of four suicide bombers that carried out attacks in Iraq. The others included a German, a Kuwaiti and a Palestinian, all of whom were photographed alongside an SUV.
