Born to an Indian family in Britain, Siddhartha Dhar converted to Islam at the age of 19 and came to be known as Abu Rumaysah. By some accounts, he ‘changed’ as a teenager, after his father’s death, when he started shunning television and began sleeping on the floor. Other reports say it was because he wanted to marry Aisha. What’s undisputed, however, is the radicalisation that followed.
He became a street preacher, advocating Shariah law in the UK. Consequently, in September 2014, after being arrested for allegedly encouraging terrorism, he was let out on bail and told to submit his passport to the authorities. Instead, Rumayasah, Aisha and their three children boarded a train to Paris from London’s Victoria Station and ultimately to Syria.
Shortly after, he tweeted a photograph brandishing an AK-47 in one hand and holding his new-born, his fourth baby, in the other. “What a shoddy security system Britain must have to allow me to breeze through Europe to (IS),” he wrote.
On 23 January, Abu Rumaysah, was designated as a global terrorist by the United States. But how did a man selling bouncy castles at parties go on to become the executioner for the Islamic State?
Here’s what we know so far.