Canadian medic in Isis stronghold – 'crude and unrefined'
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Version 0 of 1. Ismail Hamdoun’s was a typical student Facebook post. “Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear – Albert Camus”, the young medical student wrote in 2011. Less than four years later, he apparently set off for areas controlled by Islamic State, a group that has put fear at the heart of its rule and recruiting. Earlier this month, Hamdoun travelled from Sudan, where he had recently graduated from medical school, to the Syrian border, with around a dozen friends and classmates. Just before they crossed the border, one of the group told her parents they were going to volunteer in hospitals. A Turkish politician helping search for the group says they are thought to have travelled to Isis-held areas. Hamdoun, who is believed to be around 30, is probably one of the oldest of the group, with the others mostly in their late teens and early 20s. Anxious relatives searching for the group shared his Facebook profile photo and confirmed he is a Canadian citizen. He spent his adolescence in Toronto, graduating from the Bloor Collegiate Institute high school in 2004 and going on to the University of Toronto, where he was listed as a coordinator for “Brothers Events” with a Muslim student group. After graduating in 2008, Hamdoun went to Khartoum for medical school. The parts of his Facebook page that are publicly visible show a thoughtful, popular man, devout but not exclusively preoccupied by religion. There is a mix of jokes and inspirational quotes, medical discussion and political comments. “I’m like oil – crude and unrefined!” he announces in one post. Elsewhere he quotes Oscar Wilde: “Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humour was provided to console him for what he is.” Perhaps most disturbing are pictures from hunting trips in Sudan, which show a row of blood-stained rabbit heads, and several images of him and friends posing and messing around with hunting rifles and shotgun cartridges. He exclaims under one photo: “A gun makes a man feel like a man!” Apparently repelled by fairly gory pictures of dead rabbits, a friend wrote: “Oh great, now you’re on a killing spree??” Hamdoun replied: “Better rabbits than something or ‘someone’ else, no?” He later betrays his upbringing in Canada, which has stricter gun controls than the United States, with the words: “Yup lol, guns make anyone scary! The point of a gun is to make deficiencies less obvious!” Hamdoun apparently kept up with a range of friends back home after leaving. In one post he turned down an invitation to an evening organised by Asiansploitation, a comedy troupe, saying “I am out of the country dude!” and apologised to another friend for not being in touch. “I miss you Ish! Come back soon! But this time when you come back don’t wait until the week before you leave to tell me, you ass!”, one Canadian friend complained in 2011. “Fair enough,” he replied, adding a sad face emoticon. Religion is a constant but not dominant presence, appearing in links such as the one to the “overnight Qari” from reciteintune.com, a website that promises to “break down the art of beautiful recitation of the Quran”, and also in discussions on other posts. There are regular references to his growing medical knowledge. He jokingly mentions “doctor’s orders” in messages with friends, and on one page discusses a new laser being developed to “zap malaria” with someone who suggests spending the money on proven remedies such as mosquito nets instead. Hamdoun writes to a friend: “One advantage I can think of is you’ll never have laser-resistant mosquitos ... However drug resistant malarial strains are an ever-growing problem.” His last post suggests he was thinking of travel, but to somewhere very different from the chaotic Syrian border lands. Under a picture of a classic car in Havana, a slogan asks “Planning a trip to Cuba? Mr hotel.co is offering a special deal all week long.” It was an offer that Hamdoun may have been tempted by, but apparently never took up. |