Terror suspect who went to Syria in 2014 arrested
BRAMPTON — The day before Kevin Omar Mohamed was arrested by anti-terrorism police, a post on his Twitter account showed an image of travellers being gunned down and asked where one could find the “Brussels airport” version of the video game Call of Duty.
It was one of the last of thousands of social media posts linked to the former engineering student — some of them concerning Syria and jihad — before he was arrested in Waterloo on Friday following a two-year RCMP national security investigation called Project Swamp.
The 23-year-old has been charged with two weapons offences over a large hunting knife he was carrying in a bag when he was arrested. At a court hearing Saturday, an RCMP officer said police were investigating five alleged terrorism offences, but no such charges had yet been laid.
Mohamed allegedly returned from a trip to Syria in the spring of 2014, according to those familiar with the case, although it is unclear what he was doing there. While he has not been charged with terrorism, police are seeking a preventive peace bond to restrict his behaviour.
Sgt. Adam MacIntosh told a provincial court judge in Brampton the peace bond was needed because police had reasonable grounds to believe Mohamed would leave Canada to participate in terrorism, advocate or promote terrorism and facilitate terrorist activity.
Little else was disclosed about the case but his prolific social media profile suggested a preoccupation with the Syrian conflict. His posts are almost all anti-ISIL but he does seem to closely follow Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaida faction in Syria — although he wrote in a disclaimer that he did not support any group.
Mohamed is “Guyanese by background” and described by friends as socially awkward and always feeling out of place.