Man Radicalized by Taliban Describes Moment He Left Terror Lifestyle to Work as Undercover Agent

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor Friday, August 26, 2016

Mubin Shaikh, a former Taliban fighter who studies Muslim interventions in counter-radicalization, poses before an interview at his home in Toronto, Ontario, Canada May 15, 2016. | (Photo: Reuters/Chris Helgren)

A Canadian Muslim man who was formerly radicalized revealed in an interview earlier this week that his jihadist views changed after he met with Taliban militants, which subsequently led him to fight terrorism as an undercover agent.

Mubin Shaikh said he got "bit with the jihadi bug," and described himself as someone who had been "radicalized," according to The Blaze.

He said that he even radicalized and recruited other young people to "this singular narrative." To accomplish that, he would often ask young Muslims, "There is a war on Islam. What are you doing about it?' he recalled in the interview with The Blaze in New York City on Tuesday.

However, his jihadist views were challenged after he met with some AK-47-wielding members of the Taliban in Pakistan just by chance, he said.

"In 2002, after 9/11, I realized there is somethig wrong with flying planes into buildings. ... What these people do is completely against Islam, number one, and number two, it takes a Muslim to set things right," Shaikh asserted.

He added that American Muslims do, in fact, condemn terrorism but the mainstream media fails to adequately report on their efforts.

An Islamic State militant (L) stands next to residents as they hold pieces of wreckage from a Syrian war plane after it crashed in Raqqa, in northeast Syria, Sept. 16, 2014. The Syrian war plane crashed near the Islamic State-controlled city of Raqqa on Tuesday, a resident said, and a group that tracks violence in the war said a number of people had been wounded on the ground. | (Photo: Reuters/Stringer)

The Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, which is an offshoot of al-Qaeda, continues to radicalize sections of Muslim youth, including in the West.

Earlier this month, thousands of leaked ISIS documents carrying employment forms showed that most of its recruits from its earliest days came with only the most basic knowledge of Islam, and the terror group was happy they could easily be indoctrinated.

More than 3,000 documents acquired by the Syrian opposition site Zaman al-Wasl and shared with The Associated Press revealed that 70 percent of recruits in 2013 and 2014 were listed as having just "basic" knowledge of Sharia, around 24 percent were categorized as having an "intermediate" knowledge, and just 5 percent were advanced students of Islam. Only five recruits were listed as having memorized the Quran, the newswire found.

New recruits were shown IS propaganda videos on Islam, and the visiting imams repeatedly praised martyrdom, a 32-year-old European recruit was quoted as saying.

The newswire said it analyzed the IS entry form documents of around 4,030 foreign recruits who crossed into Syria in 2013 and 2014.

The Sunni terror group uses brutal methods to torture and punish those who it considers to be its enemies, including Muslims who do not believe in its version of Islam. Christians and other minorities are among its main targets.