Raphael Hostey
British ISIL recruiter and fighter from Manchester
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raphael Hostey (1992 – May 2016), also known as Abu Qaqa al-Britani,[1] was a British Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant recruiter and fighter from Manchester.
Hostey was a rapper and graphic design student at Liverpool John Moores University when he left his wife and child to join ISIS in 2013.[2][3][4] He was part of a group of like-minded extremists in the Manchester area, including Salman Abedi[5] and Ahmed Halane,[6] and he traveled to Syria with other recruits.[4] He later wrote Ifthekar Jaman, an ISIL member from Portsmouth, was their guide and that his Manchester group joined up with a group of Portsmouth recruits whom Jaman knew.[7]
During his time in Syria Hostey used social media, including Twitter, Tumblr and Ask.fm, to promote ISIS and recruit for it. He was reportedly part of a five-man team of recruiters[1] which included Neil Prakash, and linked to Prakash's social media accounts.[1] Hostey promised there would be "beautiful wives" for ISIL fighters.[8] He is alleged to have recruited hundreds of people to ISIL, including Jamal Al-Harith[1][5][8] who was reportedly a close friend of Hostey's father.[8]
In February 2014, Hostey was shot in the foot in the fighting.[9] He is believed to have been killed in an airstrike in Syria in the last week of April 2016, at the age of 24.[1][5][10][11]
