Captured Canadian militant Mohammad Ali says he spent three years as a fighter and trainer for the Islamic State group. (Photo: AFP/Fadel Senna)
HASAKEH, Syria: A Canadian militant
detained in Syria told AFP on Sunday (Feb 10) that he has been "hung out
to dry" by the Islamic State group like other foreign fighters and
appealed to his government for help.
.
Mohammad Ali, 28, was captured by
the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) some nine months ago while trying
to flee north into Turkey with his Canadian wife and two children.
.
He was interviewed at a detention
centre in the northeastern city of Hasakeh in the presence of two members of
the SDF, who are holding hundreds of foreign militants.
.
Ali, who joined IS in 2014 under the
nom de guerre Abu Turab al-Kanadi, said he had been interrogated by the
American FBI, CIA and US defence officials, but never visited by a Canadian
official.
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Ali was dressed in a grey robe,
matching cap and tattered black sandals.
He repeatedly said he was
"exhausted" and often paused for long periods before mumbling an
answer.
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Like many other captured accused IS
members, he said he joined the group to fight President Bashar al-Assad's
government.
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He first worked in IS's lucrative
oil ministry for four months because of his previous experience in Canada as an
oil worker.
.
During that time, he used a
prominent Twitter account to call on others to join the extremists, but said he
was never part of IS's formal media apparatus.
.
He spent the following three years
as a fighter and trainer, but said he always refused to shoot civilians.
.
"That's not why I came
here," he said.
.
Read
more at Channel News Asia – 11 February 2019
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