Before his infamy as a self-proclaimed Islamic terrorist, Aaron Daniel Driver led a troubled life in which his mother died when he was young and he left home as a hard-partying teenager, a source told the Star.

The 24-year-old was killed Wednesday afternoon — just a week before his birthday — in a confrontation with the RCMP on a quiet street in Strathroy, a small town in southwestern Ontario.

According to police, Mounties received a warning Wednesday morning from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation that an attack on a major urban centre was planned for some time in the next three days.

The tip led the RCMP, who were working with other police agencies, to Strathroy, where Driver was killed. He was already under surveillance by the Mounties and had been arrested and released on a peace bond restricting his movement in June 2015. However, Driver was under investigation for possible ties to Daesh, otherwise known as the Islamic State, ISIL or ISIS, since December 2014, the RCMP said Thursday.

Police on Thursday played a video given to them by the FBI, which shows Driver in a balaclava as he threatened violence against Canada in the name of Islam.

“We thirst for your blood,” he said.

How did the young man, born to a military family, come to utter such a phrase to his fellow Canadians?

He was born in Saskatchewan on Aug. 18, 1991. His parents were said to be Christians, and he had two older siblings.

Hardship seems to have started early for Driver. The family house burned to the ground when he was 4, and his mom died of a brain tumour in 1999, according to a source close to Driver.

Around that time, he started to close himself off from his family and friends and wouldn’t accept professional counselling, the source said. By Grade 7 he was also said to have had drug paraphernalia to hand and he started frequently skipping school.

Being from a military family, Driver also moved around a lot as a kid. From the time he was born to when he was 16, the family lived at more than 20 different residences, the source said, adding this made it hard for Driver to make friends because he was the perennial “new kid.”

It was around that time that 16-year-old Driver moved out to live on his own. In his February 2015 interview with the Star’s Allan Woods, in which he spoke under his pseudonym, “Harun Abdurahman,” Driver explained that he was “tired of the lifestyle” he was living and “took full advantage” of his new-found independence and “partied a lot.”

He said he found Islam when he was about 17 and renounced the Christian faith of his childhood. Driver said he gave up drinking and eating forbidden food like pork — he said he used to love bacon — as he became interested in the framework of life that the religion could provide.

The source said Driver soon started distancing himself even more. “It was as it the lights suddenly went out and never came back on again.”

Speaking with the Star last year, Driver said his family lived in a different city when he made his religious conversation. He said he was motivated by what he saw as negative portrayals of Muslims and Islam in the media, as well as “empty spaces” in Christianity that didn’t make clear how to live a good life devoted to the religion.

He said his Islamic faith didn’t jive with his family’s way of life. “I guess that’s why my parents were hesitant or had their doubts that I was serious — because of their lifestyle. It doesn’t include Islam. Being members of the military they’re involved in fighting Muslims whether directly or indirectly.”

It’s unclear how Driver radicalized. At the time of his interview with the Star, he said he had been contacted by a Canadian intelligence official, who asked him about his beliefs regarding his religion and the Islamic State. Driver believed he drew the government’s interest after he tweeted a video of a Canadian fighting with the Islamic State, John Maguire, calling on others to follow the example of the attackers on Parliament Hill and in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., in the fall of 2014.

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The RCMP said Thursday their investigation into Driver started around that time. He was arrested in Winnipeg the following June, and placed under a peace bond designed to restrict the online activity and movements of terrorist suspects, and allow for more robust police surveillance.