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Eight years later, Xristos and Ali seized a natural gas plant in an Algerian desert with al-Qaeda. They died Jan. 19, along with 37 hostages and 27 other Islamist militants. Their friend, Aaron, sits in a North African prison, sentenced for being connected to a terrorist group. The three flew to the Middle East together in 2011.



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A city in Mauritania’s southeastern desert, Boutilimit is known as the hometown of the country’s first president and a centre of Islamic learning that has attracted students from not only Africa but also the West.

On the outskirts of the city, in a village called Naim, Aaron Yoon, a 24-year-old Muslim convert from London, Ont., lived and studied at a Koranic school, according to a Mauritanian official familiar with the case.

Exactly what happened in the hamlet is a matter of dispute. Yoon, who is now imprisoned in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, has said he was wrongly convicted of terrorism and subjected to torture and beatings.

But the official, who spoke on the condition he would not be identified, provided new details of the 2011 Mauritanian police investigation, describing how Yoon was recruited for jihad by a radical cleric.

The official identified Yoon’s recruiter as Mohamed Hafez Ould Cheikh, who is allegedly connected to Al Qaeda through his cousin, Hassan Ould Khalil, a.k.a. Jleibib, an associate of regional terrorist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar.