German Islamic State 'education minister' confirmed dead

German security sources confirmed on Friday that an Islamic State leader was killed last year during operations to drive the militant group out of the city of Mosul, after a year of conflicting reports of his whereabouts. 

Reda Seyam, whose whereabouts were largely unknown for the past year, was a German citizen of Egyptian origin. He was born in 1960 and had two wives and six children.

After living in Egypt for 15 years, he left to Syria in 2012 and shortly after joined IS and became the militant group’s education minister.

Seyam, who was known by the militant group as 'Zul Qarnain', was praised because of his ability to radicalise the education system in Syria and Iraq for IS. 

German authorities refused to comment on his death twice — once in 2014 when there were reports that he was killed in an airstrike. They refused to comment again during the operation to liberate Mosul from IS last year.

While he lived in Germany, he caused a stir after insisting on naming one of his children ‘Jihad’ - a name banned in the European republic. Siyam was notorious for being an advocate of extremism and was largely unpopular.

The German Constitution Protection Agency, Internal Penalties and the Public Prosecution estimates that around 1,000 citizens have left to join militant groups in Syria and Iraq since 2013.

According to the published data, about 150 militants from Germany were killed in conflict zones.