Yet again we see the correlation between a turn to devout observance of Islam and involvement in jihad terror activity. Not all devout Muslims are jihad terrorists, but all jihad terrorists are devout Muslims. Yet back in 2011, the Obama administration removed a sudden immersion in Islam as a sign of a possible turn to terrorism. Authorities must discount such evidence. One day this willful ignorance is going to allow for a jihad terror attack in which people are going to get killed.
“Anthony Joshua’s amateur rival Tariq Abdul Haqq died for Islamic State after boxing career,” by Richard Damerell, Sky Sports, April 23, 2020 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
Tariq Abdul Haqq wept at the presentation of his Commonwealth Games medal and walked away from boxing after fighting two world heavyweight champions.
As the last man to bring a boxing silver medal back to his home country in 2010, Haqq should be revered in Trinidad and Tobago, but a descent into religious extremism has tarnished his ring career. Haqq headed to Syria to fight for Islamic State four years later – and would be killed in 2015.
Trinidad and Tobago has since discovered a new super-heavyweight contender in the towering form of Nigel Paul, an expectant entrant in the Tokyo Games, but he is unlikely to match the exploits of Haqq, a former opponent for Britain’s Olympic 2012 star, Anthony Joshua….
Disillusioned with his nation’s regard for the sport, Haqq drifted away and would only reappear years later, in articles and a documentary about recruits for Islamic State.
Jürgen Todenhöfer, the first western journalist to be granted access to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq, was taken aback by his meeting with Haqq, who had arrived in December 2014.
“We saw people from all over the world, from Sweden, France, and the United States,” Todenhöfer said in his documentary ‘Inside IS’.
“There was a guy from the Caribbean. Very good looking. Very charming. Stylish, Ray-Ban glasses. And I said, ‘what are you doing here? What have you done before?’ He said, ‘I’m going to do whatever the caliph (Islamic State ruler) is asking’.”
Haqq was among an alarmingly high number of men who had travelled from Trinidad and Tobago, which had one of the highest recruitment rates for Islamic State.
He was accompanied by his wife and his sister, Aliya, who revealed how the death of their father in an accidental shooting had been the catalyst for Tariq to become immersed in religious extremism.
“My brother came home one day and he said he was going to Syria,” she told Simon Cottee for Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.
Cottee has confirmed to Sky Sports that Haqq was killed in 2015, but months earlier he sustained severe injuries during a bombing in Syria, losing one of his hands, the source of his greatest talent….