Canadian appears in terror group’s propaganda video two years after being killed in Somolia
TORONTO — Two years after he was killed while attacking the Somali Supreme Court in Mogadishu, a Canadian member of the terrorist group Al Shabab resurfaced Thursday in a propaganda video released on the Internet.
The video showed former Toronto resident Mahad Ali Dhore handling a handgun and speaking into the camera in English, but did not explain why the Al Shabab propaganda wing had decided to release it so long after his death.
“I want to speak specifically to the brothers and sisters in the West,” he said in the video, released by the U.S. based SITE Intelligence Group. “Brothers and sisters, make jihad in the cause of Allah, make hijrah [immigration] so you can come to jihad in the cause of Allah.
“Leave the material world behind and Allah the great and almighty will give you something better. Jihad is obligatory and Allah the great and almighty, if you trust in Allah, Allah will provide for you, Allah will be sufficient for you.”
Dhore immigrated to Canada from Somalia at age nine. He was a 25-year-old York University student when he left the country in 2009, telling his family he intended to stay with his aunt in Kenya. But once in Kenya, he crossed the border to an Al-Shabab training camp.
He was one of a half-dozen Somali-Canadians from Toronto who became radicalized and left the country around the same time to join Al Shabab, an Al Qaeda linked armed group trying to impose its extremist version of Islam on Somalis.
All of are died or became so disillusioned with Al Shabab they left. According to the Canadian government’s 2014 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada, Dhore was killed while participating in a terrorist attack.
“In April 2013, the group attacked the Supreme Court of Somalia, killing more than 35 people and injuring dozens. A Canadian extremist traveller, Mahad Ali Dhore, is presumed to have died helping to conduct the attack,” the report said.
Referring to Dhore by his alias, Farhan, the propaganda video said he left Canada “in the cause of Allah to support his lord.” It said he had “prayed often,” “insisted” on conducting a suicide mission and that “Allah facilitated for his wish.”
An attempt to recruit more foreign fighters, the video comes as the terror group has been severely weakened by pro-government troops, an African Union force and U.S. missile strikes. Meanwhile, the rise of ISIS has left Al Shabab struggling to attract recruits, who are instead flocking to Syria and Iraq.