MONTREAL—They are the ones who blazed the path.

In 2012, a handful of young men from Quebec left the country for Turkey after having prepared as if they were heading to war. Four years later, police are still trying to establish what really happened during their trip.

Some are suspected of having taken part in a kidnapping in Syria. Others were suspected of having fought alongside Islamists. They are the subject of a La Presse investigation into what appears to be the first wave of Canadian foreign fighters.

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They appeared to be playing war.

At a firing range in a suburb of Montreal in 2012, a half-dozen boys, on the cusp of adulthood, were undergoing weapons training.

The group did not go unnoticed. They were young and clearly not hunters. They didn’t have the equipment. They were wearing running shoes despite the snow. They weren’t particularly comfortable with their weapons.

In between burst of gunshots, they stopped to pray, according to one person who frequented the range, who did not wish to be identified for fear of reprisals.

“Even if their behaviour did not fit in, they didn’t much care. They liked to show that they were different,” the man said.

At least one of the boys wore plastic gloves and ski goggles while he shot, a tactic sometimes employed by those who fear that traces of gunpowder might be detected on their hands or face as they try to pass through airport security gates.

The young men were part of a small group of Quebecers whose speech and extreme Islamist ideas were already worrying anti-terror authorities. RCMP agents regularly visited the firing range where they trained.

A few months later, they were among the first Canadians to have left for Turkey, apparently with the intention of getting to Syria and joining the ranks of jihadist groups. Experts speak of them as “the first wave.”

“Those who left in 2011-2012, from Quebec or elsewhere, it was just to take part in jihad, like those who had gone to fight in Afghanistan, Bosnia or Chechnya,” explained Hicham Tiflati, former employee of Montreal’s Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence, and a current member of a research group on female radicalization at McGill University.

“It was like military service: they do it and then they come back home.”

At the time in Syria, Daesh (also known as ISIS or the Islamic State) had not declared an Islamic caliphate. This was before the mass propaganda on the Internet. What attracted the young Quebecers, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation, was fighting against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

There were many armed groups fighting among themselves at the time, including the al-Nusra Front, Chechen fighters and the Free Syrian Army. Some were considered terror groups by Canada, while others were allied with the West — something that complicates the work of police investigators. Often, young foreign fighters would pass from one group to another.

For months, the Quebec group prepared their departure, according to sources. They trained with weapons, they frequented the same mosques — including two Montreal Islamic centres, Badr and Assahaba — and met up regularly at each other’s house.

But one by one they started leaving.

One day, one of the young men simply disappeared. Just 20 at the time, he was accused of possession of a prohibited weapon. As his trial approached in October 2012, his lawyer told the court that he could no longer reach him. His cellphone was disconnected. He didn’t respond to emails.

At his former apartment, the new residents said debt collectors from credit card companies had been trying to find them ever since.

Another man, who was 18 at the time of his departure, told his family that he left to do humanitarian work in Turkey. He had recently converted to Islam and practised an extremely rigorous version, refusing to shake hands with women. His speech became more and more alarming. In his luggage, he had night-vision goggles.

Several months after leaving, he returned, completely disillusioned, said the imam who counselled him upon his return to Canada.

What happened during his trip?

He told investigators that he went to Antakya, a Turkish city well known as a passage for jihadists going to Syria.

He swears that he never crossed the border. But that’s not the view of police.

According to court documents obtained by La Presse, the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team believes that he and at least five other members of the group were involved in the kidnapping of two American journalists in Syria in 2013, which was orchestrated by a group linked to Al Qaeda.

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Matthew Schrier and Theo Padnos were held against their will and tortured in Syria starting in December 2012. One was held for seven months, the other for two years. After his liberation, Padnos, who is originally from Vermont, told American media that he recognized the Québécois accent when he heard his kidnappers speaking.

During the long period of captivity, the kidnappers forced Schrier to divulge his bank account information. After his escape in July 2013, Schrier realized that a number of electronics items had been ordered and paid for with his credit cards.

The items had been delivered to an address in the Montreal neighbourhood of Westmount, where one of young suspected jihadists lived at the time, a document obtained by La Presse indicates. The former resident refused an interview request.

The delivery address for another order was in Laval, a suburb north of Montreal, the where the parents of two brothers believed to have gone to Syria lived. The order was later cancelled. The parents of the suspects refused an interview request.

In 2015, the RCMP investigators carried out search warrants at the homes of six Quebecers in connection with the kidnapping. Four of them have since returned to Quebec and two are still believed to be living in the Middle East.

The search warrant affidavits say they are suspected of having participated in a kidnapping, extortion and fraud for the profit of a terrorist group. The allegations has not been tested before the courts, and the investigation is ongoing.

Some believe the suspects are lucky to have appeared on the police radar before 2015, when federal anti-terrorism legislation was modified to criminalize the act of trying to join a terror group.

“They became the subject of an investigation too early,” one police source said.

Two other individuals suspected of being members of the first wave of jihadists are facing criminal charges since returning to the country, but the charges are related to more recent infractions.

It is important to note that they are not suspects in the kidnapping case.

Samy Nefkha-Bahri was charged in 2015 for intimidation of a Crown prosecutor that was involved in a terrorism case. He travelled to Turkey in 2012 and 2013. Since his return to the country in 2013, he has attended several terrorism court cases.

In an interview with La Presse this week, Nefkha-Bahri refused to say if he visited Syria, but according to sources, the police are convinced he did. Even though he was suspected of taking part in terrorist activities during his trip, he had firearms in his possession up until last year.

Nefkha-Bahri says he has never supported terrorism, that he loves Canada and that he is not violent.

The other individual is Ismael Habib.

Habib came back from Syria in 2013, according to sources. Upon his return, he continued a normal life in Quebec before being arrested last year for spousal abuse. He is alleged to have threatened to blow up his victim’s car.

Shortly after, he is alleged to have tried to leave Canada to participate in terrorist activities and of having made a false declaration with a view to obtaining a Canadian passport.

A publication ban prevents media from revealing any of the facts in the case. Habib is being held in custody.

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