ISIS terrorist group supporters upset about the capture of prominent Canadian jihadi

ISIS supporters are complaining that reporting by friendly media networks on the capture of a Canadian who was the terror group’s propagandist has hurt their morale because it is being celebrated on social media with tags to the CIA and Mossad.

The National Post reported Sunday that an ISIL-linked media outlet confirmed one of their fighters captured in Syria is a Canadian who “waged jihad with his voice and weapon” as the narrator of ISIL’s English-language news and propaganda.

The Al-Muhajireen Foundation, an outlet with known links to ISIL, distributed a poster praising the man as a “hero” on Sunday.

It showed a photograph of a man who identified himself as Mohammad Abdullah Mohammad, a Canadian from Toronto who was captured by Kurdish forces on Jan. 13 after a firefight with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-supported coalition of militias.

An English-language version of the Al-Muhajireen poster was later distributed, saying the Canadian’s capture was “sad news for all mujahideen of the Islamic State.” It dubbed him “our media mujahid.” (Mujahid and mujahideen are the singular and plural form of the Arabic word for someone involved in jihad.)

The announcement identified the fighter by his nickname Abu Ridwan Al-Kanadi and said he “was translating publications and reading Islamic State news in English.” The Arabic language version added he “waged jihad with his voice and weapon until the last moment,” according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which monitors terrorist communications.

The Al-Muhajireen’s notice was spread on Twitter and in other social media by anti-terrorist organizations, some of which tagged the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. Department of State, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Israel Defense Forces and a news feed about Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, among others.

The apparent joy from the enemies of ISIL, also known as ISIS, upset jihadi supporters, who started complaining on Telegram, an online messaging service, according to MEMRI.

“In their folly they publish publications which serve the Crusaders and the enemies of the (Islamic) State,” says one message discovered and translated by MEMRI.

“We see what the dogs and donkeys, the (Islamic) State’s enemies, publish regarding the martyrs, the prisoners and their families, whether via photos or video clips,” the translation of the message continued.

“Since publishing these kinds of photos serves the interests of the media, they publish for you things which would make children’s hair turn gray. However, there is no benefit in publishing these things. On the contrary, their harm vastly exceeds their benefit.

“The fact that it diminishes the brothers’ morale is enough (to deem these publications harmful). Therefore, we ask these foundations to focus on that which raises morale, and on what benefits media activities, rather than the opposite.”

The lengthy complaint was by a user calling himself Qadih, who MEMRI described as a prominent voice in pro-ISIL Telegram groups who is likely connected to the ISIL central media department.

Qadih’s message included a screenshot of the foundation’s notice about the Canadian’s capture marked with CIA and Mossad-related social media tags.

The foundation’s announcement was a curiosity from the start as it used an image of the Canadian not from his time with ISIL but of him in captivity. The photo appears to be a screenshot from a video distributed by the SDF.

The video was taken after the Canadian was captured in a firefight, when he led an attack on a checkpoint.

Wearing a large bandage on his forehead and speaking fluent English, the man gives his name as Mohammad Abdullah Mohammad and says he is a Canadian of Ethiopian decent. The SDF said he holds Canadian citizenship.

Further information suggests he is 35 and was born in Saudi Arabia, but moved at the age of five to Canada, where he grew up in Toronto and attended Seneca College.

He is believed to be the same man as the masked narrator of a notorious ISIL propaganda video that features the mass execution of captured Syrian government soldiers. The narrator appears to take part in the firing squad. The same man is believed to be behind several recorded claims of responsibility by ISIL for deadly terror attacks on the West as well as reading news reports on ISIL radio networks.

The Canadian was captured in Deir al-Zour, part the diminishing remnant of territory in eastern Syria held by ISIL.

Source: National Post