Canadian army vet arrested in Iraq
B.C. resident ‘sick of ISIS,’ says fellow fighter
As he counted down to his scheduled release from the Canadian army, Kenneth Chen took to social media to announce the news. “Now all I gotta do is to find a job after,” he said in a February 2014 post on his Facebook page.
Just over a year after leaving the military, the former Edmonton- based combat engineer was in Iraq and Syria, according to seven acquaintances who said they saw him there. Most said Chen had joined the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria.
“Yes, he joined up with the YPG,” said Joe Robinson, a former British soldier who said he met Chen in July at a camp in the mountains of northern Iraq. The camp was a staging area where YPG recruits waited to cross the border into Syria, he said.
Robinson said he and Chen later went through training and were together about six weeks. “He was very much a loner and didn’t have many friends while in Syria,” he said. “He never really said what his reasons were for going.”
For a handful of Canadian army veterans, the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has become a way to put their military training to good use. Not all the Canadians aiding Kurdish forces are former troops, but some see the conflict as an extension of their duty as soldiers.
“I felt more countries should be doing something and that my skills were being wasted as a civilian,” said Steve Krsnik, a Canadian army veteran fighting with the YPG in Syria. “Then there was the attack on Parliament Hill in Ottawa where they killed a local boy and fellow soldier that sealed the deal for me.”
On Nov. 4, John Robert Gallagher became the first Canadian veteran to lose his life volunteering in the conflict. Those who have returned safely have faced no consequences, aside from being questioned by the RCMP or Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
But Chen confirmed he had been arrested by Iraqi authorities in late October. “Actually we were told that they would drop us off at the airport. But they backstabbed us and put us in detention,” he said when contacted through Facebook.
He said he was held for 45 days but was recently released. He said he was never told why he was being detained in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. He attributed the incident to the rivalry between Kurdish factions in Iraq and Syria.
Another possible explanation is that the government in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region is growing wary of the flow of Western YPG volunteers who transit through their territory on their way to and from the fighting in Syria.
Canada’s foreign affairs department said it had provided consular assistance to a Canadian arrested in Iraq, but declined to discuss Chen’s release. “We are aware of reports of the release of a Canadian citizen in Iraq,” Rachna Mishra said. “To protect the privacy of the individual concerned, further details on this case cannot be released.”
Chen was also reluctant to further discuss the matter. He agreed to meet in a Canadian city to tell his story but then told a reporter to stop contacting him. “I don’t do media,” he wrote. “I have seen too many media whores. And I refuse to be like that.”
On social media, however, Chen has said that he moved to Vancouver from Taiwan at age 14 and studied architecture science. He wrote about preparing for the RCMP exam but later said he had joined the Canadian Forces.
A photo posted on his Facebook page showed him marching in uniform, wearing the insignia of the 1st Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group. He wrote that he had enlisted in the army because Mormonism had taught him “to selflessly help others.”
“He was a member of our church and last summer he requested that his name be removed from the records of the church, so we did that,” said Bishop John Nelson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints’ Kingsway ward in Edmonton. He said Chen had left the military following an unsuccessful attempt to join the special forces.
In Facebook posts, Chen wrote that he was scheduled to leave the military in March or April 2014. He said he had served 41/2 years and would stay in Edmonton provided he could find work. It was unclear when he left for the Middle East.
“He joined YPG because he was sick of ISIS,” said Colin Rutterford, who said he met Chen at a safehouse on June 29, 2015. “I was with him from landing in Iraq. We came out together but he went back in. He actually lent me the $400 for my visa,” he said.
“Any free time he’d be on his phone playing some game,” added Rutterford, a British national who has since left Syria. He “wasn’t a very popular person because he was a bit of a loner. Just a quiet bloke there to do what he could.”
Chen never saw combat and often talked about video games and comics, said Robinson, who was arrested upon his return to the U.K. last month and is currently out on bail. ( While he was in Syria, a warrant was issued for his arrest after he allegedly failed to show up for a court appearance related to a pub fight.)
Several Western volunteers said they had met Chen at a YPG base in Karacho, Syria. Azad Hassan said Chen went by the name “Bagok” and came to his restaurant in Kobane, the city on the Turkish border that was occupied by ISIL until it was retaken by Kurdish forces in January. He did not recall Chen as much of a fighter, but said the Canadian was respected because he had come to help.