Ah Tiong fighting Islamic State voices regret for sharing his story with media

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‘Come home’, family tells Chinese man fighting Islamic State, as he voices regret for sharing his story with media

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 10 December, 2015, 3:24pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 10 December, 2015, 7:36pm

Nectar Gan
[email protected]



The Chinese volunteer fighting Islamic State with a Kurdish militia. Photo: BBC

A young Chinese man who is fighting Islamic State in Syria in a local militia group says he regrets the publicity generated about his story in the media because he fears it will lead to retribution against other people from China in the region.

The 25-year-old from Sichuan province, who has only revealed his surname Pan and his Kurdish name Ba Si, arrived in Syria in October and joined the Kurdish militia the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, BBC Chinese reported last week.

The militia is fighting Islamic state in Kurdish areas of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

Pan told the BBC he was the first person from China to join the militia and had fought on the frontline in Kobane in Syria twice since his arrival.

The report was picked up by international and Chinese media.

But the fighter regrets speaking to the media, according to a statement he posted on his Weibo social media account Wednesday evening.

“I think I have done a very stupid thing. [I] shouldn’t have let BBC report on it. My life or death does not matter, but ISIS is also reading the BBC and there are many countrymen doing business in Iraq and other areas in the Middle East.

“I don’t want them to face retribution because of me... I don’t want to see innocent people harmed because of me,” he wrote.



The Chinese man has shared pictures of his life with the militia on social media. Photo: BBC

The BBC reported that Pan did not tell his family about his final destination before leaving China.

Pan’s older sister in their hometown in southern Sichuan told a local newspaper, the West China City Daily, that she was anxious and extremely worried about his safety. She urged Pan to come home as soon as possible.

His sister said their parents in their 60s and 70s had no idea that Pan had travelled to Syria to fight as she dared not tell them.

“They don’t know where [Syria] is, nor do they know what IS is,” she was quoted as saying.

She said Pan had called her for help more than a month ago, telling her that he was abroad and had run out of money. She transferred 3,000 yuan (HK$3,600) to him and he had not contacted her again, the newspaper reported.

Pan told the BBC that he was inspired by Huang Lei, a 23-year-old British Chinese volunteer who became a fighter in the Kurdish militia in March and subsequently a hero on Chinese social media.

It was through Huang’s example that he realised he could make his own contribution to fighting Islamic State, he said.

“Since I’m already here, I won’t worry about my own safety,” he was quoted as saying by the BBC, “But I’ll try my best to protect myself.”

Pan said he did not have a stable job back in Sichuan and had recently broken up with his girlfriend. He said he had received three months of civilian military training in Sichuan back in 2012, therefore he was confident he could fight.

He took a flight to Istanbul from Bangkok on September 24 and eventually made his way to Syria on October 12, the report said.

Pan shared some of his experiences on Weibo, posting photos of himself and his fellow fighters, sometimes in military uniform with automatic weapons in hand.

There were also photographs of children and local communities, showing their daily life.

His first post dated back to September 18 when he was in Bangkok. “Then [I’ll] do it! Syria is waiting for me. I really can’t stand how savage ISIS is,” he wrote.






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