Jihadists (file)
Jihadists (file)AFP file

On Thursday reports were released that a Canadian citizen described only as Abu Abd Al-Rahman was killed in March in the city of Aleppo, according to Shalom Toronto. Al-Rahman is one of many Canadian and other foreign jihadists journeying to Syria to join the bloodbath.

The report of Al-Rahman's death appeared on a Syrian Internet site that specializes in documenting the names of foreign jihadists killed while fighting in the ranks of opposition forces. The fighting has been intense, as documented by video footage.

Just last Thursday Andrew Parker, Director of the British domestic intelligence service MI5, announced that hundreds of British citizens have traveled to Syria to join the fighting, most of them siding with the rebel forces.

Al-Rahman is just one of many Canadians making the jihad pilgrimage to Syria.

In February Jamal Mohammed Abd Al-Kadar, a student from Montreal, was killed in the truck bomb attack he drove in Damascus. Al-Kadar had joined the Al-Nusra Front terrorist organization associated with Al-Qaeda.

Then in May a man, apparently bearing Canadian citizenship, was killed while on an observation mission prior to carrying out an attack with a male British citizen and a female American citizen.

Damien Clairmont, a Calgary convert to Islam, joined the wave of foreign jihadists when in June he went to collaborate with Al-Nusra Front. It is possible that he was the fighter filmed in Homs in July with a Canadian flag sewn onto his clothes.

In one last example, Ali Mohammed Dirie of Toronto was killed in September fighting for Al-Nusra Front. Dirie had previously been convicted of organizing a terror attack that planned to strike governmental targets in Canada in 2006, and consequently served an extended sentence.

The Syrian conflict is now in its third year and has claimed over 120,000 lives since November 2011.