Bishkek, October 20, 2015
A video was published on the internet on September 18, 2015, in which “the Islamic State” militants in Syria send one of their members on a suicide mission. This unfortunate victim was Babur Israilov, a 21-year-old resident of Kyrgyzstan. According to his relatives, two years ago Babur left for Russia and never returned.
Radio Ozodlyk (the Uzbek service of Radio Liberty) has reported that there were five suicide attacks during the battles for the town of Fua and other settlements of the Idlib governorate, but B. Israilov was the first fighter whose nationality was identified.
This video became immediately popular on YouTube and soon reached the southern districts of Kyrgyzstan. Resident of the Suzak district of the Kyrgyzstan’s Jalal-Abad region Hamidullah Bakirov saw him on one of his fellow villagers’ cellphone screen and recognized his own nephew as the suicide bomber. Soon the weeping suicide bomber in the unsettling video was recognized by his real father, Takhir Rakhitov, reports Radio Liberty.
In his interview with Radio Azattyk (the Uzbek service of Radio Liberty) Hamidullah Bakirov related that his nephew was born in 1994. Soon after that, when the later was still a baby, his parents divorced. A year later Babur’s mother died, his father married again, and the child was raised by his grandmother. When the grandmother passed away, the uncle decided to look after him.
“My sister did not show the child to his father. After her death the father remarried. My sister entrusted her son to me and asked me to cherish him like the apple of my eye. I brought him up as my own child from his infancy. I always protected him but, nevertheless, he was my nephew and was offended when I scolded him. I reared him in strictness. It seemed I was too harsh with him recently, and when he asked me to let him go to Russia I allowed him to leave. He said he would go to work in Russia and would marry following his return. He left in November 2013. I feared he would fall under bad influences and thus was against his departure. We spoke with him on the telephone once or twice until March 2014; he sent me the money he had earned. But after March 2014 he disappeared. I suspected either things were going not well or he got into someone’s clutches. And recently I watched a video on some young man’s cellphone, and recognized my nephew. I could not even imagine that such things could have happened to him. Now I regret so much and repent.”
Soon the journalists managed to find Babur Israilov’s father, Takhir Rakhitov.
“My spouse died in 1995, and her mother wanted the grandson to remain with her. She used to say that her grandson was the only she had left of her daughter. I did not refuse and gave my son to my mother-in-law. Then I remarried and had two more daughters and three sons.
Though I did not bring up Babur and did not pay attention to how he lived, I always worried about him. I believe that if I had reared him myself, this tragedy would not have happened. I want to say to other parents: watch over your children! Prevent them from going astray and taking the wrong path.
