British Chinese volunteer fighting alongside Kurds against ISIS in Syria becomes a weibo hero

Photos of a British Chinese volunteer in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have gone viral on mainland social media after he posted photographs of everyday life as an international freedom fighter on his weibo account.

Huang Lei, who goes by the username “LeiG7”, is one of a group of international volunteers that includes military veterans and others with no combat experience, who have travelled to Syria to help Kurdish guerillas according to an report in The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper.

Huang’s latest post, on May 23, shows photos of him and his teammates holding up an ISIS flag after an apparent victory somewhere in northern Syria.

“An area in Northern Syria was finally liberated from the hands of ISIS!” Huang writes. “I was very lucky to have captured the IS flag! We won, even though it’s only a small place!”

As of Thursday, the entry had been reposted some 20,000 times.

According to his weibo entries, Huang has been stationed near Al-Hasakah in the northeastern corner of the war-torn country for more than three months.

One photo shows Huang standing proudly in front of a wall lined with weapons. He’s showing a thumbs up sign, while behind him big black letters spell Team Freedom above a line of larger Chinese characters that read “justice will prevail”.

In an intervew with the popular independent media blog Global Watch on Wednesday, Huang claimed to be a native of Sichuan province who moved to the UK when he was very young where he later earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Manchester,

Huang and his fellow fighters have fought alongside the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit, also known as YPG.

“I am not a hero and I don’t want to be a one,” Huang said. “But I’m very proud to be fighting IS with a group of heroes from around the world.”