[LINK] On the trajectory of John Maguire from high school joker to ISIS jihadi
Quickly looking at the news of John Maguire, the Ottawa-area man who has shot to fame as encouraging terrorist attacks in Canada on behalf of ISIS, Sarah Boesveld and Sam Cooley's Ottawa Citizen article "Path of a jihadi: How John Maguire went from a high school joker in Kemptville to an Islamic radical" provides as good an overview of his early life as any. Unsurprisingly, at least at this early stage, while people have some idea as to when the 20-something man converted to radical Islam no one as yet is saying why this happened.
(Where do all the lost and lonely people go?)
On Sunday, a propaganda group linked to Islamic State released a six-minute video featuring a speaker who identified himself as Abu Anwar al-Canadi. The gaunt young man scolded the Canadian government for joining an international military coalition fighting Islamic State, referring to “the global war against the Islamic state.”
Friends identified the speaker as Maguire, a University of Ottawa dropout and who was raised in Kemptville and spent a year at Hillcrest high school in Ottawa. He dropped out of sight a year ago.
In that past life, now seemingly so far away, John Maguire was a teenager whose sharp wit sometimes got him into trouble, say those who knew him. In the halls and classrooms of North Grenville District high school, Maguire was far from the strident, opinionated loner those who knew him later in life describe: He was smart, funny and sarcastic.
[. . .]
Few who’d gone to school with him heard anything about him until Postmedia News reported the RCMP was investigating his presence in Syria.
His path there had many stops since Kemptville: In Grade 12 he was living with his grandparents and attending Hillcrest high school in Alta Vista. Classmates say his exit from Kemptville was abrupt and unexpected. “(Maguire) just got rid of everyone on Facebook and kinda disappeared,” says one former classmate. “He never told us why.”
(Where do all the lost and lonely people go?)
On Sunday, a propaganda group linked to Islamic State released a six-minute video featuring a speaker who identified himself as Abu Anwar al-Canadi. The gaunt young man scolded the Canadian government for joining an international military coalition fighting Islamic State, referring to “the global war against the Islamic state.”
Friends identified the speaker as Maguire, a University of Ottawa dropout and who was raised in Kemptville and spent a year at Hillcrest high school in Ottawa. He dropped out of sight a year ago.
In that past life, now seemingly so far away, John Maguire was a teenager whose sharp wit sometimes got him into trouble, say those who knew him. In the halls and classrooms of North Grenville District high school, Maguire was far from the strident, opinionated loner those who knew him later in life describe: He was smart, funny and sarcastic.
[. . .]
Few who’d gone to school with him heard anything about him until Postmedia News reported the RCMP was investigating his presence in Syria.
His path there had many stops since Kemptville: In Grade 12 he was living with his grandparents and attending Hillcrest high school in Alta Vista. Classmates say his exit from Kemptville was abrupt and unexpected. “(Maguire) just got rid of everyone on Facebook and kinda disappeared,” says one former classmate. “He never told us why.”