WATCH: New video has emerged of the man accused of helping British teenagers cross into Syria with the three girls. Mike Armstrong has the details.
Canadian officials say they won’t comment on matters of national security when faced with questions about a Canadian intelligence connection to a man accused of helping three British girls join ISIS.
Defence Minister Jason Kenney and Parliamentary Secretary Roxanne James* held that line on Friday.
Turkish Foreign Minister Melvut Cavusoglu on Wednesday told media outlet A Haber a man had been arrested in the case of the three girls — 16-year-old Kadiza Sultana and 15-year-olds Shamima Begum and Amira Abase — who left London for Istanbul on Feb. 17 and then travelled to Syria.
Cavusoglu said the suspect, taken into custody on Feb. 28 worked with a foreign intelligence agency from a country involved in the anti-ISIS coalition. But, he said that nation was neither the U.S. nor a European Union member country.
Hours later, Turkish media cited government sources saying the country in question was Canada.
A government source told Global News on Thursday officials are aware of the individual in question, but that he was not a Canadian citizen and not “an employee” of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
READ MORE: Suspect accused of helping British girls join ISIS not CSIS employee: source
Kenney told reporters in Calgary he also he had not heard the name Muhammed al Rashid — the man Turkish newspapers have since named as the alleged Canadian intelligence cohort.
Al Rashid is reportedly a Syrian citizen who has travelled into Turkey 33 times since 2013. According to Turkey’s Yeni Safak, a pro-government newspaper, al Rashid told authorities he worked with Canadian intelligence and had met with intelligence officials at the Canadian embassy in Jordan.
He told Turkish authorities he was working with Canadian intelligence in hopes of getting Canadian citizenship.
Footage of the man purported to be al Rashid emerged on Friday, showing him being taken to a courthouse, was aired by A Haber on Friday.
The channel also obtained a second video, purportedly taken from his computer, that shows the three girls after their arrival in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep — a hub for foreigners travelling to join ISIS.
“He instructs them to take their baggage and not to leave anything behind. He informs the girls that they will be in Syria within one hour,” Daily Sabah, an English-language newspaper, reported.
READ MORE:Female recruits to ISIS: The recruiter’s call
Yeni Safak also learned al Rashid’s computer contained copies of the girls’ passports and those of 17 other people. As well, Turkish intelligence found his bank accounts logged several financial transactions that originated in the United Kingdom, each between $800 to $1,500, Yeni Safak reported.
The case of the missing British girls has made headlines around the world, highlighting an increased number of female ISIS recruits for North America and Europe.
A report last month from the U.K.-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank, suggested more than 550 women have travelled from Western countries as “migrants” to the Islamic State — the name ISIS calls its self-declared caliphate established in seized Syrian and Iraqi territory.
READ MORE: Hundreds of women left Western countries for Islamic State: study
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About 15 women are believed to have left Canada to live with ISIS militants, according to Amarnath Amarasingam, a postdoctoral fellow based at the University of Waterloo who is researching Canadian foreign fighters and tracks their social media interactions.
“I think there’s a kind of heroism to this whole thing… a kind of cool factor,” Amarnath said in an interview with Global’s 16×9, airing Saturday at 7 p.m.
He explained how easy it was for ISIS recruiters to interact with girls and young women on social media and instant messaging apps. Some of the recruiters are also women.
After the departure of the three girls from London, all classmates at East London’s Behnal Green Academy, their families criticized authorities for not alerting them that another girl from the school had left for Syria two months earlier.
British and Turkish authorities have since lobbed criticism at one another for their handling of the situation.
*CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story indicated Roxanne James was the Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Defence. James is the Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. This story has been updated accordingly.
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