A video footage from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, depicting a desperate man calling for help and identifying himself as an Ethiopian, who had gone to the war-torn city of Deir el-Zour to fight for ISIS, has surfaced this week.
The man identified as Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed alleges, he had travelled from Canada to Syria in 2013, before he was captured in a gun battle. The English-speaking man is also rumored to be the voice used in much of the propaganda voices of ISIS that were released in recent years, including one that took credit for the Paris attack of 2015, that killed 130 people. According to his friends in Toronto, the man embraced a fanatic religious conviction and changed his name as, Abu Ridwan, before he decided to flight in Syria.
Like a number of western societies, the North American nation continues to struggle with accommodating returnees from the battle grounds ofnations it deems against its national interest.
Earlier this week, American president, Donald Trump announced an Alabama woman HodaMuthana who travelled to Syria and Iraq and joined ISIS in 2014 will not be allowed to return to the United States despite her American citizenship, as her family contest. This follows the Government of Britain who is expected to strip the citizenship of a British-born, ShamimaBagum, who also travelled to Syria as an “ISIS Bride” and is expected to be stateless with a child that was fathered by a soldier, who has since died.
In the midst of an election year and where the issue of citizenship is expected to be a wedge political issue, there is little appetite to help the man, commentators say.
