Minnesota man surfaces in leaked ISIS documents
Biographical information of a Minnesota man who left the U.S. to join ISIS in Syria is mentioned in one of the thousands of ISIS documents apparently leaked by a member of the extremist group.
Among those documents, some of which were posted online by Dubai-based Al Aan TV, is an ISIS recruitment form containing the biographical information of Hanad Mohallim, who left the Twin Cities on March 9, 2014, at 18. Mohallim is believed to have died in Syria in 2014. The form's 23 questions ask basic biographical information: name, nickname, blood type, mother's name, date and place of birth and marital status. In the form viewed by MPR News, the recruit's name is redacted and only the mother's first name is entered.
One of Mohallim's family members, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid being connected to ISIS, confirmed some of the personal information included in the form, which aligned with details of Mohallim's life that MPR News has previously reported.
According to the form, Mohallim first went to Canada and then traveled to several countries including the U.K., United Arab Emirates, Holland and Turkey before arriving in Syria.
Based on his social media posts and interviews with his friends, Mohallim appeared to have become more contemplative during the summer of 2013, tweeting at one point that he grew up fast because he didn't have a father. The death of a cousin, Mohallim said, was a wake-up call. He also called on young Muslims to realize their identity and said he was trying to do the same.
A friend, Hamza Ahmed, encouraged Mohallim on Twitter to join him at a mosque for Friday prayers. In what would be his final tweet to Mohallim, on March 14, 2014, Ahmed asked if they could meet up at the Al-Farooq center in Bloomington.
Ahmed apparently didn't know that five days earlier, Mohallim had left for Syria.
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