Bangladesh terrorism suspect had Alberta ties, sources say
Chowdhury linked to Calgary man killed in ’12
CALGARY A Canadian accused of masterminding a deadly attack in Bangladesh last month is the latest person with ties to Calgary and extremist groups overseas.
Bangladeshi police say Tamim Chowdhury was behind an attack at a Dhaka restaurant on July 1 that left more than 20 people dead. Chowdhury was one of three suspects killed by police near the Bangladesh capital over the weekend.
Sources say the man spent time in Calgary and was spotted at a local prayer centre with Damian Clairmont, who died fighting alongside terrorist groups in Syria in April 2012.
Clairmont’s mother, Christianne Boudreau, said she felt sick to her stomach when she heard about the Dhaka attack. Reached in France, Boudreau said she had learned through George Washington University researcher Amarnath Amarasingam that Chowdhury apparently had ties to the same Calgary prayer group that her son had been a part of before going to Syria.
“Amar had made me aware of the ties and of who he was and the information that he’d started finding that he’d likely travelled back and forth between Windsor and Calgary and that it was very possible that he was one of the ones that had got Damian into everything in the first place,” Boudreau said.
Amarasingam could not be reached for comment on Monday.
But in an article authored for a website aimed at providing information for researchers about jihadism, jihadology.net, Amarasingam said Chowdhury was born in 1986, graduated from the University of Windsor in 2011, and travelled to Calgary some time after that.
A Calgary source confirmed he saw Chowdhury at a local prayer centre once in 2012. At the time, the young man was standing next to Clairmont. The source was surprised to learn that Chowdhury, whom he knew in Windsor as being a quiet person, was accused of being one of the masterminds behind the Bangladesh attack.
“He was very quiet, very reserved … I did not see any form of leadership characteristics from him,” said the source.