French Islam convert killed fighting Syrian regime, like his half-brother

Nicolas Bons, a young convert to Islam from a comfortable middle-class French background, has died fighting in Syria barely four months after his half-brother met the same fate, their father said.

In a story that has provoked bewilderment, the mother of 30-year-old Nicolas was informed by text message from the frontline that her son had been "martyred" on December 22 in a suicide truck bombing in the Syrian province of Homs, the father, Gerard Bons, said by phone from his home in French Guiana.

Nicolas' half-brother Jean-Daniel had died in fighting at the start of August. He was 22 and had been introduced to radical Islam by Nicolas, who had himself announced his conversion to his parents in 2009.

Nicolas' personal journey mirrors that of many of the increasing number of converts to Islam who have signed up for jihad, or holy war.

Having struggled at school, Nicolas lost his way in his early 20s, developing a cannabis habit and picking up a conviction for petty dealing.

According to his family, all that stopped almost overnight when he found Islam. He soon became a regular visitor to a mosque in his home city of Toulouse and an assiduous reader of the Koran.