Monday, July 21, 2014

Jihadist blog targets mom of deceased convert

 

 
Jihadist blog targets mom of deceased convert
 

Chris Boudreau, whose son Damian was killed in Syria fighting for a terrorist group, was contacted by a jihadist in Syria trying to convince her to embrace their extremist ideology that condemns the West.

Photograph by: Gavin Young, Postmedia News , Postmedia News

Chris Boudreau has been reeling for months after learning her son died fighting with a terrorist group overseas. Now, a self-proclaimed jihadist is urging the Calgary mother to embrace an extremist ideology she suspects was used to "brainwash" her son.

On his blog, Abu Dujana al-Muhajir claims he was among a group of young men who left Calgary to join "various fronts of jihad" after forming a study group at a downtown mosque. Damian Clairmont, Boudreau's son who was also part of the group, was later killed during rebel infighting in Syria.

Clairmont's death devastated and confounded his mother, who continues to struggle with how her boy, raised in a loving family, could adopt radical views and die fighting for them.

In his latest blog post, Abu Dujana writes an open letter to Boudreau in which he explains the ideology behind her son's path to violence and encourages her to become sympathetic to the cause.
"The attempt to get me to fall for the same thing just made me shake my head," said Boudreau, who has branded herself an advocate against homegrown radicalization and has met with like-minded officials across Canada and abroad to advance her cause.

"At least it means I must be getting to somebody enough that they are trying to find another way to get me to see their point of view, so that I don't continue what I'm doing."

In his blog, Abu Dujana takes aim at Canada's "Zionist prime minister" who he claimed supports the "continued crimes of Israel." He says foreign fighters such as himself and Clairmont took up arms against a "global system of oppression" in which "innocent men, women and children are pleading for our help."

He rejects the notion westerners waging jihad have been brainwashed, insisting they had been "reading the Qur'an with an open heart and then watching the news of global events happening in front of our very eyes."

"In the end, I pray that Allah opens your heart to Islam so that you may live a life of honour and dignity, and die as a Muslim and join your beloved son Damian in paradise (we ask Allah to accept his martyrdom)," Abu Dujana writes to Boudreau.

Boudreau recently returned from Europe, where she met with three other mothers whose sons had also died fighting alongside radical Islamic groups. One of the sons was killed two months before Clairmont in the same Syrian town.

She was able to build a bond with the others and learned their sons spouted the same kind of rhetoric she read in Abu Dujana's blog.

"After talking to these mothers and hearing the exact same story over and over again, you know that (radicals are) using the same verbiage with everybody." Born into a Catholic family, Clairmont was a troubled teenager who appeared to find peace after converting to Islam. But he adopted anti-western views before travelling abroad.

He had reportedly been fighting with rebels affiliated with al-Qaida before he was killed in December or January. He was the first Calgarian confirmed to have fought overseas with an extremist group, but he would not be the last.

Farah Mahemd Shirdon, a former SAIT student reportedly fighting with the Islamic State, made headlines last month when video footage showed him burning his Canadian passport and threatening Canada and the United States.

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