London man sentenced to 7 years for spreading IS propaganda

A London man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for terrorism offenses after an investigation that started with a complaint about a Facebook message.

Mohammad Kamal Hussain was sentenced in Kingston Crown Court Monday after being found guilty of encouraging terrorism and supporting a banned organisation.

The investigation started when a man emailed the Home Office after receiving a private message on Facebook urging him to join Islamic State (IS). Police found that the 28-year-old Hussain sent that message and had posted numerous messages praising IS.

The person who notified the Home Office did not live in Britain and said he did not know the sender of the message.

The case was given to the Met Police's counter-terrorism unit that specialises in removing online extremist material.

The number of IS fighters, both foreign and domestic has dwindled to less than 1,000 according to US-led international coalition fighting the militant group.

The figure is a third of the number suggested earlier this month.

"Due to the commitment of the coalition and the demonstrated competence of our partners in Iraq and Syria, there are estimated to be less than 1,000 ISIS terrorists in our combined joint area of operations, most of whom are being hunted down in the desert regions in eastern Syria and Western Iraq," the US-led coalition told Reuters, using an alternative acronym for the extremist group.

Iraq and Syria both declared victory over IS in the past few weeks, after a year that saw the two countries' armed forces, foreign allies and tribal units drive the extremists out of towns they had controlled for three years.