Alleged Canadian ISIL member captured
Kurdish fighters hold former Toronto resident
A man who says he is Canadian has been captured during a clash in Syria and accused of fighting for the Islamic State, according to Kurdish forces in the area.
A 41-second video interview with a quiet-spoken, bearded, dark-skinned man in seemingly good health was distributed Sunday by various Kurdish political and media outlets, saying he was captured in Deir al-Zour, part the remaining territory in Syria held by the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS.
Under questioning from an unseen interrogator, the man says his name is Mohammad Abdullah Mohammad and that he entered Syria through Turkey at the Idlib border.
“I am originally from Ethiopia and I came from Canada,” he says on the video, according to a translation prepared for the National Post.
He names the Kurdish commander who caught him, at the encouragement of his interrogator.
“And you were in the trench?”
“Yes,” he answers. “You got out and you had a clash with our guys,” he is asked.
“Yes,” he says.
In the video, Mohammad is wearing a black shirt under a jacket with a camouflage pattern. He does not appear to be in particular distress.
Amarnath Amarasingam, a university researcher who studies Western foreign fighters, said he was told Mohammad was born in Saudi Arabia in 1983, came to Canada in 1988 and studied computer networking at Seneca College in Toronto.
Mohammad apparently left for Syria sometime between May and September 2013.
Lisa Pires, a spokeswoman for Seneca, declined to confirm if Mohammad was ever enrolled at the school, citing privacy reasons.
A request for information to Global Affairs Canada also went unanswered by deadline on Monday.
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-supported coalition of militias led by the Kurdish YPG, distributed the video online late Sunday, describing Mohammad as “an ISIS member of Ethiopian origin who holds Canadian citizenship.”
A week earlier, the SDF announced the capture of five other ISIL foreign fighters in the area, naming two from the United States, two from Pakistan and one from Ireland.
It said those ISIL fighters were caught trying to flee the diminishing ISIL-controlled territory in the Middle Euphrates Valley.
Amarasingam says Mohammad’s capture brings the number of Canadians held in Syria by Kurdish forces to four men, three women and seven young children.
“The Kurds have always made these kinds of arrests public eventually. They do it both to show that they are treating these prisoners with respect, but also to continue to pressure Western governments to take their prisoners back,” said Amarasingam.
According to the Kurds, they are holding more than 2,000 men, women and children from 44 countries as prisoners captured in areas formerly held by ISIL.
“It is not clear what will become of these prisoners as the nature of the conflict on the ground changes, and as Trump decides to pull out American forces. They could be handed over to the Syrian government, they could be handed over to the Iraqi government, or the Iraqi Kurds,” Amarasingam said.
Last month in a report on terrorism threats to Canada, Public Safety Canada said about 190 “Canadian Extremist Travellers” (CETs) — people with links to Canada who went to participate in extremist activity in other countries — are currently abroad, including in Syria and Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North and East Africa.
Approximately half of them are in Turkey, Syria or Iraq.
“Over the past year, Daesh (another name for Islamic State) has lost significant territory in Syria and Iraq,” the report says.
“This has raised international concerns about the potential threat posed by extremist travellers returning to their home countries as they escape the conflict zone. Canada has not experienced, and does not expect to experience, a significant influx of returning Daesh-affiliated extremist travellers.
“Many of these individuals have been killed or captured in Syria and Iraq, and many will remain abroad due to their ongoing commitment to the cause. Of the CETs remaining there, only a few have openly expressed a desire to return to Canada.”