From Acton to Aleppo: how one British Muslim's quest to Syria ended in death

From Acton to Aleppo: how one British Muslim's quest to Syria ended in death | World news | The Guardian:
"The Briton's violent death was the culmination of an improbable journey from the streets of Acton to Aleppo, driven, according to friends, by a redemptive desire to atone for past misdeeds.
Almanasfi's family were conservative Sunnis from Damascus, Syria's capital. But he grew up in west London, the son of a bus driver, who later split stormily with Almanasfi's mother and remarried twice. In his passport photo Almanasfi looks not unlike Noel Gallagher.
As a teenager, according to his friend Tam Hussein, Almanasfi drifted into trouble. He got involved in street fights with other Acton gangs and petty crime: drugs, stealing, booze. In 2008 his father sent him to Syria to cool down. Apparently this didn't work. A year later he did something he would bitterly regret: drunk, he attacked an older man. The details are hazy. But he was caught, sentenced to four or five years in jail, and initially imprisoned in Feltham young offenders institute."