WINNIPEG – Members of Winnipeg’s Muslim community have attempted to contact a young convert who many fear has embraced a radical view of Islam.
The 23 year old Winnipegger uses the assumed name Harun Abdurahman on Twitter. His social media posts show support for the terrorist group ISIS, and recent terror attacks in Canada. There are reports the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is investigating him.
“I have spoken to him on Facebook but other than that when we try to contact him he refuses to go out,” said Alex Simard after prayers Friday at a mosque in St. Vital. “We were trying to convince him that these ideologies aren’t really in line with the Canadian Muslim identity.”
Global News attempted to contact Harun without success.
But Toronto Star journalist Allan Woods spoke to the man last month.
“He sees value in the bloody violent propaganda they put out. It’s views are surprising and probably terrifying to a lot of Canadians,” Woods said Friday.
According to Woods, Harun says he came from a Christian, military family that moved around a lot. He says the man converted to Islam in 2008, after dropping out of high school.
This isn’t the first time CSIS has looked into terrorism linked to Winnipeg. A former Red River student was under investigation in 2010, when it was believed he had joined an extremist group in Pakistan.
Winnipeg Police say they understand the threat of home grown terrorism.
” In this day and age, terrorism is real. We have to be concerned about terrorism in Canada, Winnipeg, and Manitoba. I think we are all working on this to address that,” Acting Chief Art Stannard said Friday.
On Thursday, March 5th, the 23-year-old took to twitter saying, ” I may be in some very big trouble.” On Friday another tweet, “Please delete all local conversations with me.”