A 13-year-old from France is believed to be the youngest to die fighting for Islamic State in Syria. Abu Bakr al-Faransi, originally from Strasbourg, was killed when Government forces attacked a border post he was guarding, it has been reported. According to David Thomson, a French journalist and author of Les Français jihadistes (The French Jihadists), al-Faransi died two months ago. Mr Thomson said he arrived in Syria with his family and two of his brothers have been killed in fighting. Several sources said the boy was killed while guarding a border post in the western city of Homs when it was attacked by the Syrian Army, Mr Thomson posted on Twitter. Anthony Glees, director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, said: 'The 'al Faransi' moniker shows that like 'al Britanni', IS want to rub it in for all of us in Europe that our young people continue to be drawn to them, as martyrs from the IS viewpoint, or like rabbits to car headlights from ours. 'This chap got killed, that's the bottom line. What an appalling waste of a young life. 'The government's riposte should be that if IS have to rely on young kids to fight for them, they're really beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel. 'It also shows that young Muslims are targets of IS recruitment, whether from Bethnal Green or from a French banlieu.' Mr Glees added: 'We undoubtedly need to work together with our European allies to reverse this deeply worrying trend; the first step is to recognise that it exists. The second is to ensure that those who are helping IS are told to stop it.' It's believed that three missing British schoolgirls who fled to Syria to join ISIS are in a house in the city of Raqqa. Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and 15-year-old Amira Abase went missing two weeks ago after boarding a flight from Gatwick to Istanbul. The girls are believed to have crossed from Turkey to Syria through the town of Arai. At the weekend, Sky News reporter Stuart Ramsay said: ‘We are told by very good sources in Raqqa that they are there and that they are under the control of Islamic State.' He also revealed that they were staying with a British girl – thought to be a pupil from their school who went missing in December and is believed to have joined IS. The 15-year-old student, the first to disappear from Bethnal Green Academy in east London, has not been identified by the authorities. At least 22 young women are feared to have travelled to Syria from the UK over the past 12 months.
