Owensound Suntimes
Saturday September 9, 2017
American defence officials have confirmed a Calgarian who took up arms with the Islamic State was killed over two years ago.
An official with the U.S. Central Command public affairs office confirmed to Postmedia that Farah Mohamed Shirdon — who in 2014 fled to Syria and in the process became a de facto spokesman of the notorious terror organization — was killed in July 2015 in Mosul, Iraq.
News of the 24-year-old's death confirms what many had suspected of the Calgarian's fate, who came to prominence three years ago when he burned his Canadian passport in an ISIS propaganda video, issuing threats of jihad against western nations.
"We are coming and will destroy you ... this is a message for Canada and for all America," said Shirdon in the 2014 video, who also went by the nom de guerre Abu Usamah as-Somali.
"I left comfort for one reason alone, for Allah."
In Aug. 2014, numerous reports surfaced of his apparent death while fighting in Syria — allegations he disproved a month later when he reappeared on social media claiming to be in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa.
Earlier this year, the U.S. State Department added Shirdon to their list of "Specially Designated Global Terrorists," calling him a prominent fighter, recruiter and fundraiser as well as a significant national security threat.
The April 19 decision also added Canadian Tarek Sakr to the most-wanted list — believed to be part of a group of Quebecers who left for Syria between 2011 and 2012.
Shirdon found himself on Interpol's most-wanted terrorist list in 2015 for leaving Canada to join a terrorist group, as well as participating in and instructing others to join a terrorist group.
He was also charged-in-absentia by the RCMP in September of that year for participation in the activity of a terrorist group, as well as counselling others to carry out terrorist activity.
Born in Toronto before moving to Calgary with his family, Shirdon — whose uncle was once prime minister of Somalia — was a student at SAIT and worked at the Scotiabank Chinook movie theatre.
While he wasn't the first Calgarian to flee the country to join ISIS, he was one of the most prominent, said former U of C political scientist and homegrown extremism expert Dr. Michael Zekulin.
"He was a part of what we call the 'Calgary Cluster,'" he said.
"They were not the only cluster, but they the very first public one."
Shirdon, he said, was contemporaries with other Calgary extremists as Damian Claremont, Salman Ashrafi and brothers Collin and Gregory Gordon — all of whom died while fighting alongside ISIS.
"He will be very well known, obviously in the Calgary context — but he was actually the public face for ISIS for a very long time," he said.
"Canada-wide, and not just Calgary-wide, you cannot take past indicators as any prediction of what's going to unfold in the future with this.
"ISIS is on the ropes, sure, but the ideology and the ideas still exist."