Canadian Charged with Joining Islamist Fighters in Syria
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced terrorism charges Wednesday against a 25-year-old Canadian for allegedly traveling to Syria to fight alongside Islamist fighters.
The charges against Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, are the first ever laid against a Canadian under a new law passed last year that criminalized travel abroad for the purpose of terrorist activities.
"On July 17, 2014, the RCMP Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) in British Columbia charged Hasibullah Yusufzai, age 25, a resident of Burnaby, British Columbia, for leaving Canada to take part in terrorist activity," Sergeant Greg Cox said in a statement.
"The accused is being sought for leaving Canada on January 21, 2014, to commit an offence for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with a terrorist group," he said.
"The individual is known to have traveled to Syria to join Islamist fighters."
Canada's spy service estimates that more than 100 young men have
left Canada to fight in foreign wars and join jihadist causes.
In 2011 another young man, Mohamed Hersi, was arrested at the Toronto airport under another anti-terror law for attempting to join a Somalia-based group listed by Canada as a banned terrorist organization.
Hersi, 28, was convicted in May of seeking to join the Shebab, an al-Qaida-linked group that claimed responsibility for a suicide commando assault on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall last year which left at least 67 people dead.
He faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced on Thursday.
Source: Agence France Presse
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