In an interview with local ANHA news, Mohammed Ali says he was born in Pakistan, but moved to Canada when he was a child and lived in Mississauga, Ontario.
Ali recounted how he went to Turkey with the plan of going to Syria to take part in the revolution against the regime.
In Syria, he said he moved around between areas north of Aleppo, Tabqa, and Deir ez-Zor province. He was trained in light weaponry and with a sniper rifle, and learned reconnaissance skills. He fought on the front lines as part of a sniper unit.
He also said he worked in an oil field, using skills from previous experience in Canada.
Ali could be the same Mohammed Ali identified by Canadian media as going by the pseudonym Abu Turaab. He left Canada in April 2014 to join ISIS.
Abu Turaab was active on social media, praising ISIS atrocities like the killing of American journalist James Foley.
The Ali now in Kurdish custody claimed he did not leave Canada with the intent of joining ISIS, but to fight against the Syrian regime.
“To be honest, I didn’t know what ISIS was when I left. I found out about them once I got to Turkey,” he said.
He said he saw very little front line action and spent the majority of his time receiving or conducting training, plus about six months working on the oil field.
His longest stint in one place appears to have been one-and-a-half to two years at a camp conducting training for English-speaking ISIS members.
He minimized his fighting role, saying he was on the front lines just a few times, fighting regime and Russian forces or Turkish-backed rebels.
“Most of the time, my job was just to go there and do recon [reconnaissance]. It’s mostly recon, just with binoculars, things like that,” he said.
The most action he claimed he saw was against the regime north of Aleppo, where he was part of a sniper unit taking shots at Syrian soldiers holed up in a building in an industrial complex.
“That was probably the only time when we attacked the enemy force… the regime,” he said.
The militant group has been largely defeated across Iraq and Syria. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), alongside the global coalition against ISIS, is battling the group in its last holdout in the Hajin pocket in the Euphrates River valley of Deir ez-Zor.
“Pretty much everyone I’ve known is killed,” said Ali.
His last position was in southern Deir ez-Zor province, where he said he retreated from advancing regime forces.
The Kurdish administration in Rojava, northern Syria, has some 900 foreign ISIS fighters in its custody. It has repeatedly called on states to take back their nationals, saying it will not prosecute them in Syria.
Governments around the world, however, are resisting calls to bring the jihadists home.
Kurds have warned that they will not hold these fighters for much longer.
They will continue to pursue diplomatic efforts, tweeted Abdulkarim Omar, head of foreign relations for Rojava’s al-Jazeera canton. “However, if our efforts do not yield results, then we will take a new position,” he said.
Those returning to Canada may not face prosecution, according to a report by Global News earlier this year.
Prosecution on terrorism charges is “complex and resource intensive” and there “may not be sufficient evidence for charges,” read government documents obtained by the news outlet.
Obtaining usable evidence from foreign conflict zones is a challenge and Canada may have to “mitigate the threat through efforts outside the criminal justice system,” the documents explained.
An estimated 190 Canadians are believed to have joined terror groups overseas. About 60 are known to have returned home – few of them facing charges.
Among those he met in Syria, “I was the only Canadian,” said Ali. “There was one American. A lot of Australians, some Europeans, a lot of Russians.”
When Ali decided to leave ISIS, his father-in-law contacted the Canadian government and intelligence service (CSIS). Ali said their advice was to get to Turkey or go to the Kurdish YPG forces, and “we can help you from there”.
At time of publication, Canada’s Ministry of Public Safety had not yet responded to a request for comment.
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