The Syria Question: Family to mourn Yusuf Zahab’s death

A condolence service will be held at Lakemba Mosque to mourn the passing of Yusuf Zahab, the Sydney boy who is believed to have died in a Syrian prison.

Yusuf Zahab with his niece.

A condolence service will be held at Lakemba Mosque to mourn the passing of Yusuf Zahab, the Sydney boy who is believed to have died in a Syrian prison.

Yusuf’s extended family has invited mourners to gather at the mosque on Saturday.

It was discovered this week that Yusuf, from southwest Sydney, had likely died following an Islamic State attack on the al-Sina’a prison in the Syrian city of Hasakah in January. Investi­gations are under way into whether he died as a result of the injuries he received in the attack, or subsequently from illness.

He was 17 when he is believed to have died, and had been detained in the prison since he was 14, along with hundreds of other teenage boys whose families were linked to Islamic State.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Yusuf Zahab,’’ the family said in a message that was dis­tributed among friends and their community.

“The extended family will be accepting condolences and would appreciate your attendance at Iman Ali Mosque (Lakemba Mosque). The condolence is open to both men and women at the mosque.’’

Yusuf was never accused of a crime but his brothers included Muhammad Zahab, a notorious Islamic State recruiter and Sydney maths teacher who lured more than a dozen family members to Syria before he was killed in an airstrike in 2018.

Another brother, Khaled Zahab, took Yusuf into Syria when he was 11 years old.

The brothers’ father, Hicham Zahab, is believed to have died in the prison from tuberculosis.

His mother, Aminah, his sister and other relatives are detained in the al-Roj camp located in northeast Syria.