TRIPOLI, Lebanon: When 28-year-old Charlie Sleiman Haddad showed up at the office of the mukhtar of Tripoli’s neighborhood of Zahrieh George Atieh four months ago to get a passport, the latter did not know that the young man intended to go to Turkey to join ISIS.
Charlie left for Turkey and was never heard from again but Lebanese security forces received information that he had died carrying out a suicide mission in Iraq for ISIS.
Instead of making his story known, the security forces decided to keep it hidden, family members said, to protect Charlie’s two brothers, one of whom is an officer with the Internal Security Forces and another a training cadet at the military school.
An As-Safir report published Thursday reported that Charlie visited Turkey twice, where he received military training from ISIS before he departed for Syria, according to statements given by his brother during interrogations with Army intelligence.
Charlie is the second Lebanese Christian known to have joined ISIS’ ranks. George Nabih Dibeh, 23, who disappeared a few days ago, is suspected of having joined ISIS in Iraq.
In January, Elie Tony al-Warraq, a 22-year-old Christian resident of Tripoli’s impoverished neighborhood of Qibbeh, was one of three people the Lebanese Army announced had been arrested in connection to a twin suicide blast that targeted a cafe in the Jabal Mohsen neighborhood.
Atieh told The Daily Star about the details of what happened from the moment Charlie disappeared to the measures taken by security forces to track the young man.
“The [Haddad] parents are very good people and this case is not worthy of them,” Atieh said.
The two Christian men who joined ISIS had converted to Islam before departing, shocking their families and neighbors.
Charlie Haddad hails from a modest family of Syrian origin, whose members were nationalized after a general decree was instituted in 1955. His uncle Milad still holds Syrian citizenship. Most of the family members work in construction. His father Sleiman is a sewage system expert, while his two uncles are professional house painters.
The family’s poor economic conditions forced them to move to Tripoli’s Zahrieh from Koura. Charlie’s brothers then joined the Lebanese security forces, and he worked for a short period in one of Azmi Street’s clothing stores.
Signs of his burgeoning extremism were not apparent until he began hanging out with Islamist youths.
“Before his disappearance, Charlie stopped attending Sunday mass and fulfilling his Christian duties with the rest of the family and a few months ago he expressed negative stances toward these duties,” a relative, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “He had moved out of his parent’s home days before he disappeared.”
In contrast to the Haddads, the family of Dibeh wasn’t living in squalid conditions. George was the only son of Nabih Dibeh and Carole Khlat, a member of Tripoli’s Red Cross center. The family is one of the most-well-known Orthodox Christian families of Tripoli. George was always committed to carrying out his Christian duties with his family, according to those who knew him.
The calm and shy boy received his high school education at the Lycee School. He then pursued his higher education in France. One friend told The Daily Star that George was very popular and had good manners.
“But after he came back from France, we were surprised when he told us ‘God directed me to Islam,’ and then his disappearance,” another friend said.
When he told his family about his conversion, his mother tried to persuade against it by saying that Tripoli was a city of coexistence and diversity. But her efforts were in vain.
“We used to see the sadness and anxiety of his parents who kept it all a secret until he disappeared a week ago and security reports stated that he was now a member of the ISIS,” a family member said.
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