The mother of a Brighton teenager understood to have been killed in US air strikes in Syria has spoken of her anguish.

Ibrahim Kamara, 19, from Newmarket Road, is believed to be the first Briton to die in the attacks against militants along the Syrian/Iraqi border.

Last night his mother Khadijah Kamara, 35, told The Argus she found out about his death on Tuesday afternoon through Facebook.

Speaking at her shop on Lewes Road, Brighton, which raises money to help victims of war from Sierra Leone, she said: “My son said his friend had posted on Facebook that Ibrahim had been martyred that morning.

“He did not tell me he was going to Syria, he just spoke to his brother and said he was going to Manchester to study.

“He called me back in February and told me: 'Mum I am in Syria'. I hung up the phone. Then he called again and I told him not to call me again. I went to the police.

“I was angry and disappointed because he did not think about what his actions would do to us and because he was in college.

“I used to hear him say about what was happening to people suffering and all this.

“He never said he was going to fight. I don't know if he was going to fight.

“I have prayed that God forgives him.”

The family, originally from Sierra Leone, moved to Brighton in 2004 from Rotterdam. Ibrahim attended Fairlights Primary School and Varndean College.

He was last seen by his family in January.

Unverified reports from western fighters in Syria claim that Ibrahim, who also went under the name Khalil al-Britani, was killed by fire from an American drone while he was sleeping in the country's largest city Aleppo.

He was reportedly a member of Jabhat al-Nusra, an affiliate group of al-Qaida, which has fought against both the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and Islamic State militants in the country's civil war.

Jihadis in Syria claim about 50 fighters from the Jabhat al-Nusra terror group were killed in the first round of air strikes this week.

Ibrahim wrote on his Facebook wall in July: “What would really change the situation for all oppressed muslim lands is JIHAD.

“And my advice is do your research. In quran or sunnah and dont let your local imaams do your thinking for you.

“Allah gifted you a brain. At this time not many people would like to tell you the truth not even your imaam.”

In the same month he also posted a message sent from a Syrian Army soldier goading him over the death of Abdullah Deghayes, from Saltdean.

Abdullah, a pupil at Longhill High School, Brighton, was killed fighting in Syria in April after leaving the UK in January.

He travelled with his brothers Jafar, 16, and Amer, 20, who are still believed to be in the war-torn country.

A tribute which was posted on a Facebook account under Amer's name said: “May Allah Accept You Ibraheem Kamara. What an honor, he always use to tell me he wants to catch up with my brother Abdullah.”

A Facebook account for Ibrahim shows him to be online friends with both Amer and Abdullah.

Abdul Waheed Majeed, from Crawley, became the first British suicide bomber in Syria in February when he drove a truck full of explosives into Aleppo prison.

A Foreign Office spokesman told The Argus last night: “We are aware of reports of a British national killed in Syria.”