MONTREAL—A new study of Canadians and other westerners who joined the ranks of the terror group Daesh in Syria and Iraq urges authorities to work more closely with families as a means of staying abreast of the activities of radicalized individuals and potentially countering their dangerous mindset.

Co-author Amarnath Amarasingam said in an interview that families are often treated as intelligence assets by police and government agents rather than what they typically are, which is blindsided and traumatized victims battling depression, anxiety, despair and self-doubt. Education, empathy and support from officials can empower families and turn them into useful partners.

“As the war winds down ... a lot of these guys are going to try to leave and it would be important from a national security perspective to keep in touch and know where they’re going,” said Amarasingam said, adding he has already seen fighters shifting away from Syria and toward other conflict zones in Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“Parents can be useful resources in that respect if they’re willing to share intel — and they usually are.”

The study was done by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue based in London, England, led by Canadians Amarnath Amarasingam and Lorne Dawson, who are running a study of western foreign fighters out of the University of Waterloo.

Of the 30 so-called foreign fighters interviewed for the study, nearly three-quarters said they maintained contact with family and friends back home, the report noted. Twenty-seven interview subjects were men, while three were women. Eleven of them were Canadian.

One of them was Shayma Senouci, a young student from Montreal who disappeared in mid-January 2015 along with several other young Quebec Muslims.

Senouci slipped out of the country on a flight bound for Turkey with no indication that anything was amiss, except a Jan. 15, 2015 posting looking to sell a silky white graduation dress for $300.

But the report cites one of Senouci’s friends who received an email explanation from the girl five months after she fled to Syria.

“I left because I felt imprisoned in this country. I felt dirty and deadly, an accomplice for the killings and the humiliations of Muslims worldwide,” Senouci wrote, according to the report.

One of Senouci’s fellow travellers, Mohamed Rifaat, was having trouble meeting the expectations of his parents at school, but he drew admiration from his friends and a sense of pride after reinventing himself as a devout Muslim. He was so outspoken and charismatic that others started referring to him as “Sheik Rifaat.”

For another, Imad Rafai, his more open and active religiosity coincided with the rise of Daesh, but was propelled by the corrosive debate in Quebec over legislation that proposed banning public sector workers such as doctors, teachers and bureaucrats from wearing religious symbols such as the hijab. The ban was part of the proposed Charter of Values legislation that was introduced but never passed into law.

The conflict raging in Syria and the political situation at home gave rise to what Amarasingam described as a perfect storm situation.

“Shayma Senouci said something interesting to her friends. She said: ‘I may have been in school and studying to be a doctor but I just didn’t see a future here,’” Amarasingam said. “That, I think, is very troublesome when a young person feels like being successful in a very non-religious way, like getting a job and getting ahead, is not going to be possible because of their religious identity.”

The phenomenon in Quebec and elsewhere indicates that there are a host of issues and factors in addition to the existence of the sophisticated propaganda of Daesh and other Islamist groups that can play into the radicalization of an individual.

In a sense, the report says, the call of jihadists — amplified by social media — manages to find candidates among vulnerable individuals who are “having a really hard time finding themselves.”

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Though Daesh’s territory has all but been reclaimed in Syria and Iraq, the insights and experiences of radicalized youth still has value, Amarasingam said.

“As we know from history, whether it be the Spanish Civil War or Afghanistan or Chechnya, Bosnia or Somalia, there’s always a subset of youth who are going to try and get involved in foreign conflict,” he said.

“We’re already seeing a bit of movement in places like Afghanistan and a blip of it in the Philippines where (Daesh’s) ability to attract foreign fighters is still very much present.”

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