Valdet Gashi

In January 2015, Gashi left Germany to join up with Islamic State militants in Syria. To cover his whereabouts, he claimed he was headed to Thailand on a sports mission. He was married and had two children and left them behind when he joined the extremists. He later revealed that he had joined ISIS and was helping in patrolling in the Manbij area and the Euphrates River near the Syrian-Turkish border looking for smugglers trading in cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, all forbidden in ISIS-controlled areas. His father Enver Gashi pleaded with him through the media to return to his family, but to no avail. In a later interview with the Swiss German SRF station in June 2015, he said he was "trying to help build a modern caliphate in Syria" adding: "If I die while doing good, I of course will be glad." His death was widely reported on 6 July 2015 after his brother confirmed the death of Valdet on 4 July.

Gashi turned professional in 2009 losing his debut pro boxing fight to Laszlo Robert Balogh with a KO. But he went on to win subsequent fights against Chainoi Suksumrit in 2009, Krisztian Zambo and Ibragim Zeliev in 2010 and Victor Sanicki in 2011. He won the European title and later became two times world title holder in kickboxing.

Valdet Enver Gashi (born in Pristina, Kosovo, former Yugoslavia on 10 April 1986 — 4 July, 2015) was a German kickboxer and Muay Thai fighter of Albanian origin and European and two-times world champion in the super lightweight division. He died in unclear circumstances after joining Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in Syria.