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Valdet Enver Gashi (born in Pristina, Kosovo on 10 April 1986 - died Northern Syria, 5 July 2015) was a German two-time Thai boxing fighter of Albanian origin and European and two-times world champion in the super lightweight division. He died in unclear circumstances after joining ISIS militants in Syria

Sporting career

Gashi arrived in Germany as a six-year-old Albanian refugee. He grew up in Neumarkt district of Bavaria where he was attracted to kickboxing and Muay Thai boxing also practicing break dancing passionately, before turning exclusively into sports. He found most success as a Muay Thai kickboxer and traveled to Thailand to train and fight in sports events. He regularly trained at the Elite Fight Club in Bangkok as a respected "foreign fighter" in this Thai sports art form becoming a role model and media star. EliteBoxing TV put a 45-minute reality show / documentary release featuring Valdet Gashi. He was promoted and sponsored in Thailand by Bjoern Schaufler, founder of "Thai 4 More" sports promotion company. He reportedly fought in more than 106 events in Thailand in 4 1/2 years. He also fought competitively in other countries Malaysia, South Korea, China, Iran

Gashi also met his future wife, a former top model in Thailand, marrying her after she converted to Islam. They had two daughters. The family resided in Singen, Germany.

He was involved with Gashi turned professional in 2009 losing his debut pro 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 the world title.

He also opened a Muay Thai training camp in Winterthur, Switzerland, under the name MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) Sunna. But the training programme was marred with three young men between the ages of 16 and 20, and a sister of the one of the trainees to join ISIS ranks, and the ensuing reported death near Kobani, Syria of the 20-year-old Hajan, also known as Ibn Muhamad al-Kurdi, one of the camp's students who had fled to Syria.

Militantism and death

In January 2015, he left Bavaria, Germany to join up with Islamic State militants in Syria. To cover his wherabouts, he claimed he was headed to Thailand on a sports mission. He was married and had two children and had to leave them behind when he joined the extremists. He revealed that he was working for ISIS by patrolling in the Membij 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."