Joyce Snyman clutched an image of her son’s driver’s licence, holding back her tears.
The 70-year-old Durban mother wanted to know whether her son, a suspected local Islamic State fighter, was dead, murdered or had disappeared?
If the news updates on social media are to be believed, her 44-year-old son, Aqeel Abdul-Haq Kloberie, was allegedly an Isis terrorist, killed a few days ago in Iraq in a blast.
Kloberie had converted from Christianity to Islam in 1991, soon after leaving Bechet High School in Sydenham.
A post on Twitter, by @IraqLiveUpdate, showed an image of a South African-marked driver’s licence bearing the details of an AA Kloberie being held by a man. The text accompanying the image read: “Dead Daesh terrorist held South African driver’s licence! #SouthAfrica joins the club..#Iraq”.
Another site, @TerrorMonitor wrote: “A #PMU Fighter Displays A Seized #SouthAfrican Driver Licence Recovered From A Killed #ISIS Militant”. PMU refers to the Shia Popular Mobilisation Units fighting against IS. Daesh is another reference to IS.
Snyman had been waiting eagerly at her phone for months to hear from her “introverted” son, who left South Africa for Bahrain in March this year.
“He was only supposed to go for three weeks on a contract job. He’s been around the world to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Russia. He works in the oil refineries underground, and had recently finished working at Eskom at the Medupi plant.
“The last I heard from him was in June this year. We talked about normal things, about his family and his young children, and he sounded fine. We speak often, and usually if he doesn’t call me after a week or so, I call him. But I’ve tried his number since June and I can’t get hold of him.”
It was her tech-savvy grandson who alerted her to the Twitter post on Thursday evening.
“It was a shock when we saw this. That is my son’s picture in the licence. You can tell how he doesn’t like his picture taken. But all we know is that his licence was found on a body, but we don’t know if the body is his. It could be anyone.
“There was mention some time ago that he was mugged, so his licence could have landed somewhere else. How did he get from Bahrain to Iraq. I am so confused, I just want to find out if my child is alive.”
Her son was a devout Muslim, who had renounced all Western activities and even burnt a prized collection of rap music when he converted. Kloberie’s ex-wife, who lives in Benoni, did not want to comment.
His mother added: “If my son was involved in any of these activities, then I don’t believe he was doing it willingly. I think he was being forced to do it. But I just want to speak to my child, that’s all. I’m old. I don’t need this stress now.”
Clayson Monyela, spokesman for the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, was aware of the image.
“We are waiting for the Department of Home Affairs to verify that the name on the card matches the ID number and once that is verified, we will proceed to liaise with the family.
“If the body is that of the man, then we will begin processes to bring the body back home.”
Mayihlome Tshwete, spokesman for the Department of Home Affairs, said in an SMS that it was running a “background check” on the driver’s licence.
Kloberie had rented various homes while in South Africa. His Benoni landlord, who did not want to be named, described him as a humble, softly-spoken man who kept to himself and was deeply religious. “He spent plenty of time in the mosque and was very sharia- inclined. Whenever I saw him, he always had a Qur’an in his hand or was reading hadiths and was always dressed in his kurta.
“He said he got a job in Bahrain and I was happy for him because he had recently lost his job here. He told me after a few months he will come back and take his family with him. It was after two months that he had gone that his wife started to panic, thinking he may not have found a job in Bahrain and that he is not coming back.
“When I went into his house to do some maintenance, I got a feeling of harmony, as the family had looked so happy. I had no reason to think he could be involved with anything radical…”
Ryan Cummings, a security analyst, who also posted the image of Kloberie’s apparent driver’s licence on his Twitter feed, said he was “touching base with the original distributor” of the picture to verify its authenticity.
Na’eem Jeenah, the executive director of the Afro-Middle East Centre, remarked he took the image “with a pinch of salt” because many who had joined the Islamic State often denounced their citizenship. “If you are fighting with bombs going on all around you, why would you need a South African driver’s licence?”
Jeenah estimated there were probably between 50 and 100 South Africans who had journeyed to Syria to join the militants. Some had returned voluntarily and others were intercepted by Kurdish authorities and sent back to South Africa as had happened in April to 11 men who returned home.
Two months ago, Jeenah revealed, a group of 14 South Africans, including two families, had ventured to Syria to join the group, but had ultimately left for Turkey. “They articulated to family members that we have spoken to that it was a bad experience and that they wanted to put it behind them to start a new life in South Africa. Others said it wasn’t what they had expected. They had a romantic notion of an Islamic State and the battle for justice…”
Jasmine Opperman, a senior analyst at the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium in the US, who tracks Twitter, Facebook and Telegram, “the site that Islamic State fighters or supporters have begun to call home”, wrote how on Sunday evening she picked up the communication of two South African men in Syria, boasting on Twitter that Paris deserved what it got and that the Islamic State must continue to wipe out the West. “They were South African and in Syria. Of that I am 100 percent sure. And they are totally committed and ideologically convinced. One of them has been there for over a year now, the other for about six months.”
Opperman was confident the number of South Africans supporting the Islamic State was minimal “for now at least” as South Africa was not known for radical imams and there had been no overt support for Isis.”
Saturday Star