Quebec teens may have fled to Syria
Six have been missing since Jan. 16
MONTREAL — When Bilel Zouaidia’s father began to worry that his son was being pulled into a radical lifestyle, he took away his passport.
So Zouaidia, 18, who had taken lessons in Arabic and the Qu’ran under the guidance of Adil Charkaoui at College de Maisonneuve, went to the police station, reported his papers stolen and applied for a new passport.
Zouaidia is one of six teenagers from Montreal and Laval — four men and two women — reported missing since Jan. 16, when it is believed they boarded a flight to Turkey. It is feared they crossed into Syria, bound for a new life as jihadi fighters.
In fact, authorities believe there are other young Montrealers — they won’t specify exactly how many — who have gone missing and who may have joined forces with Islamic State or other terror factions.
Parents, police and analysts say the challenges are huge in identifying individuals at risk of becoming radicalized and stopping them before it is too late.
In an interview with La Presse, Zouaidia’s father, an immigrant from Algeria, said he came to Canada to give his children a better life and did nothing to encourage terrorist sympathy in his son. “If he had spoken to me of such a thing, I would have wanted to execute him myself, sir. I would never have accepted it.
“I brought up my sons saying, ‘You are a Quebecer, you are Canadian. We don’t spit on the country that welcomes us. My son was wellraised, a model (citizen), until he disappeared.”
But he said there is only so much anyone can do to protect their adult children from outside influences. “I work from morning to night. I can’t sleep beside his bed to watch whether he is connected to the Internet,” he said.
“That is so true,” said Christianne Boudreau, whose 22-year-old son Damian Clairmont was killed last year while fighting with an extremist faction in Syria.
“You can take away their passport and they will just get another one.”
Boudreau now works on behalf of Extreme Dialogue, an in-school education program, and in co-operation with Hayat Canada, which provides counselling and outreach to relatives of individuals who have joined radical Islamic groups.
Hayat bills itself as a bridge between parents and law enforcement, religious groups, employers and social agencies trying to intervene to prevent someone from becoming radicalized or bringing them home before it is too late.
On Thursday, College de Maisonneuve’s Brigitte Desjardins said it was immediately cancelling a threeyear rental agreement with Charkaoui, who ran Sunday classes there under the auspices of the Centre communautaire islamique de l’Est de Montreal.
Charkaoui reportedly offered courses in Arabic and Qu’ran studies. But during a news conference, Desjardins said the contract was being cancelled because his teachings contravened the school’s “values.”
Charkaoui was arrested in 2003 and spent 11 years fighting claims by Canada’s spy watchdog that he was a sleeper agent for al-Qaida. Last year, he received a certificate signed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper which fully cleared his name.
In an interview with La Presse, Charkaoui said Zouaidia had attended his classes last fall but quit after two months.
He described him as quiet and expressed great surprise at the suggestion Zouaidia might have gone to Syria.
Charkaoui, who heads up a group dedicated to the fight against the spread of Islamophobia, has called a news conference Friday.
“WE DON’T SPIT ON THE COUNTRY THAT WELCOMES US. MY SON WAS WELL-RAISED, A MODEL (CITIZEN), UNTIL HE DISAPPEARED.”
ZOUAIDIA’S FATHER