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A Cree who wears a traditional coonskin cap he made himself, Dawood is a member of the James Smith First Nation in Saskatchewan. He is also a strident advocate of armed jihad.

At Toronto mosques, he has handed out hundreds of DVDs of lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical cleric who urged his followers to fight the “evil” West — until a Hellfire missile found him in Yemen.

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“For us as Muslims, our religion teaches that we’re brothers and sisters,” said Dawood, 33, who said he feared repercussions if his last name was published. “You have to stand up for your brothers and sisters, you have to defend them.”

Young, Canadian-born and online, Dawood is the embodiment of the Islamist extremists the government has called a top national security concern. He is also a newcomer to his faith, having converted to Islam less than five years ago, when he was drunk and suicidal.

And yet he has already attracted the attention of police and intelligence agencies. Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers have questioned him several times, he said, and an Australian counter-terrorism officer interviewed him two years ago for a study on “Canadian Muslim radicals.”