The University of Medical Sciences and Technology terrorist cell refers to students and recent graduates at the University of Medical Sciences and Technology (USMT) in Sudan, who were recruited by a recent graduate to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. [1] At least 24 of them are thought to have joined or tried to. [2] Nine of them disappeared on March 12, 2015, traveling from Khartoum to Turkey and to cross into Syria and join ISIL. A second group of about a dozen people left in June to join ISIL. [3]
The students were recruited by Mohammed Fakhri Al-Khabass, a British national of Palestinian origin who was from Middlesbrough who enrolled in medical studies at USMT in 2008. [3] [4] In 2011, Al-Khabass became president of the university's Islamic Cultural Association (ICA). The ICA had initially focused its efforts on raising money for charity and on dawah, but under Al-Khabass's leadership the organization became increasingly radical. Extremist preachers were invited to speak and held off-campus meetings where held where there was screening of video footage of civilian victims in the Syrian civil war. [3] The ICA posted at least eight videos of radical cleric Ahmad Musa Jibril to their Facebook page. [5]
USMT students interviewed anonymously by the BBC said Al-Khabass tried to convince people not to pursue careers in the West, and that he told them they could work as doctors at the Turkey-Syrian border and under ISIL. [1] In 2014 [5] or 2015 [3] , Al-Khabass suspended his studies and went to Syria. He later returned to Sudan, completed his degree and kept encouraging students to join ISIL. [3] His father, a doctor who runs a mosque in Middlesbrough [4] , later put out a statement saying he was ashamed of his son. [6]
The first group that left Sudan in March 2015 consisted of nine students and recent graduates, at least seven of whom were of British nationality. Two of the group members were detained in Turkey and sent back to Sudan. One of the recruits sent a text message to her sister shortly before crossing the Syrian border, saying "Don't worry about us; we've reached Turkey and are on our way to volunteer to help wounded Syrian people." [3] A statement issued by the group's families said, "We, the parents would like to announce that our children have good intentions." [7] Most of the parents traveled to the Turkish-Syrian border to try to find their children. [8]
After arrival, they were sent to ISIL's sharia training near Raqqa, [5] then to work across the ISIL caliphate. In May, two months after arrival, one of these recruits, a British-Sudanese man named Ahmed Sami Khider, appeared in an ISIL propaganda video complimenting medical conditions within the ISIL caliphate and encouraging other British Muslims with medical skills to "use your skills and come here" [9] and help build "a new society." [3] He said, "There is a really good medical service being provided here, lots of hospitals" and cited "pediatric hospitals with specialized doctors." [10]
The second group, consisting of twelve or thirteen people, left in June 2015, after Khider's propaganda video was broadcast. At least five of them booked flights to Istanbul, but the bookings were fake, in order to mislead their families who were suspicious of their intentions. These five people traveled by road to Sirte, Libya, not Syria. At the time, Sirte was occupied by ISIL. [3] The Libyan government retook the city in 2016.
Two of those five people, the sisters Abrar and Manar Abdel-Salam, eventually returned to their home in Britain. They said after arriving in Libya, they were sent to work at a hospital in Sirte and paid a monthly salary of 200 dinars. They were provided with everything they needed, including WiFi to communicate with their families back home, but were not permitted to leave the hospital until they married. Both women married ISIL members, and each had one child. Their husbands and children all died or were killed in the war, and the Abdel-Salam twins escaped to another town before being arrested. They spent a year and a half in prison before being sent back to Sudan. [3]
None of the others who left Sudan were able to return, and many of them, including Khider [10] , were reported to have been killed in ISIL's service. [3]