Jordanian MP says son joined ISIL, carried out suicide attack

Jordan is part of an international military coalition against ISIL, but the group has some grassroots support in the country.

AMMAN // A Jordanian parliament member said he learned from ISIL-linked media that his son carried out a suicide attack in Iraq, three months after dropping out of medical school and joining the extremist group.

“My son had everything, a family, money, and studying medicine, but he was controlled by terrible thoughts,” the legislator, Mazen Dalaeen said. “He was deceived and tricked by ISIL. ISIL is in every home through TVs and the internet.”

The case highlights the continued grassroots appeal of ISIL ideas in the region, including in staunchly pro-western Jordan, a partner in the US-led military campaign against the group.

Mohammed Dalaeen, 23, is from Ai, in southern Jordan – which is also the hometown of a Jordanian fighter pilot who was captured by ISIL late last year and burned alive by the militants while trapped in a cage.

Mr Dalaeen said he learned of the death of his son last week from ISIL-linked media and a TV station in Iraq’s Anbar province. One of the sites, Dabiq, said suicide attackers drove three car bombs into Iraqi army barracks on the northern outskirts of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar.

Mr Dalaeen said he recognised his son in one of the photos of the purported suicide attackers posted on the ISIL sites, under the nom de guerre “Abu Baraa, the Jordanian”.

The legislator said he last saw Mohammed in Ukraine in June and stayed with him and his Ukrainian wife, a convert to Islam, for a week.

“I noticed that his behavior had changed completely,” Dalaeen said in a phone interview on Saturday. “He had become isolated” and had grown a large beard.

Mr Dalaeen said he told his son in a heated argument that he would cut ties with him if he did not drop his support for the extremists. The next day, Mohammed left for Turkey without telling his father.

His father tried to track him down, eventually heading to Turkey’s border with Syria, but was unsuccessful.

Mohammed later reached out on Facebook, telling his father he was in Syria and had joined ISIL.

“He was very cruel with me, as if he wasn’t my son,” Mr Dalaeen said. “He said I’m an infidel and don’t fear God, and that I legislate against Islam in parliament. My efforts to get him back failed.”

On August 20, Mohammed informed his father through Facebook that it would be their last contact. He wrote that he had completed his Islamic studies and would head into battle as a volunteer for “martyrdom operations”, Mr Dalaeen said.* Associated Press