Islamic Terrorism in the West ( Mega thread)

[jollyjacktar]

2 Canadians among militants killed in Algeria siege, reports say

This has not been confirmed by Ottawa yet.....


http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/01/21/algeria-hostage-canadians.html

At least they won't get a second chance to cause trouble, wherever they're from.

 

[OldSolduer]

No sympathy for them, if this is true. 

 

[The Bread Guy]

Another tidbit of info via Reuters wire service....

The Islamist attack on the sprawling desert gas complex in southern Algeria that triggered one of the worst hostage crises in years was conceived in Mali and coordinated by a mystery Canadian named only as Chedad, the Algerian prime minister said.

(....)

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said the plot had been hatched in war-ravaged Mali and the attackers had traveled through Niger and Libya before slipping into Algeria.

The jihadists were said to come from Egypt, Mauritania, Niger, Tunisia, Mali, Algeria and, in one case, from Canada. The Canadian, identified initially as Chedad, was coordinating the raiders, Sellal said ....

 

[a_majoor]

And the National Post reports:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/21/two-canadians-explosives-experts-and-a-leader-who-ordered-a-mass-execution-among-terrorists-who-seized-algerian-gas-plant/

Two Canadians, explosives experts and a leader who ordered a ‘mass execution’ among terrorists who seized Algerian gas plant

MAR OUALI and KARIM KEBIR, Associated Press | Jan 21, 2013 6:46 PM ET
More from Associated Press

Anis Belghoul / The Associated PressAlgerian firemen carry a coffin containing a person killed during the gas facility hostage situation at the morgue in Ain Amenas, Algeria on Monday.
 
The hostage-taking at a remote Algerian gas plant was carried out by 30 militants from across the northern swath of Africa and two from Canada, authorities said. The militants, who wore military uniforms and knew the layout, included explosives experts who rigged it with bombs and a leader whose final order was to kill all the captives.

The operation also had help with inside knowledge – a former driver at the plant, Algeria’s prime minister said Monday.


The Associated PressThe damaged natural gas plant after Islamist militants attacked it and took hostages at Ain Amenas, Algeria.
In all, 38 workers and 29 militants died, the Algerian prime minister said Monday, offering the government’s first detailed account of four days of chaos that ended with a bloody military raid he defended as the only way possible to end the standoff. Five foreigners are still missing.

“You may have heard the last words of the terrorist chief,” Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal told reporters. “He gave the order for all the foreigners to be killed, so there was a mass execution, many hostages were killed by a bullet to the head.”

Monday’s account offered the first Algerian government narrative of the standoff, from the moment of the attempted bus hijacking on Wednesday to the moment when the attackers prepared Saturday to detonate bombs across the sprawling complex. That’s when Algerian special forces moved in for the second and final time.

All but one of the dead victims – an Algerian security guard – were foreigners. The dead hostages included seven Japanese workers, six Filipinos, three energy workers each from the U.S. and Britain, two from Romania and one worker from France.

The prime minister said three attackers were captured but did not specify their nationalities or their conditions or say where they were being held.

He said the Islamists included a former driver at the complex from Niger and that the militants “knew the facility’s layout by heart.” The vast complex is deep in the Sahara, 800 miles (1,300 miles) south of Algiers, with a network of roads and walkways for the hundreds of workers who keep it running.

The attackers wore military uniforms, according to state television, bolstering similar accounts by former hostages that the attackers didn’t just shoot their way in.

“Our attention was drawn by a car. It was at the gate heading toward the production facility. Four attackers stepped out of a car that had flashing lights on top of it,” one of the former hostages, Liviu Floria, a 45-year-old mechanic from Romania, told The Associated Press.

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The militants had said during the standoff that their band included people from Canada, and hostages who had escaped recalled hearing at least one of the militants speaking English with a North American accent.

The Algerian premier said the Canadians were of Arab descent. He further said the militant cell also included men from Egypt, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Tunisia, as well as three Algerians. Officials in Canada could not confirm that any of the attackers were from there.


The Associated PressMilitary uniforms displayed for the media after Islamist militants attacked the natural gas plant and took hostages at Ain Amenas, Algeria.
“The announcement of the Algerian prime minister is fine, but we need verification. It could be a forged document. We need to confirm,” said a Canadian official who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.

Three Americans died in the attack and seven made it out safely, a U.S. official in Washington said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The bodies have been recovered, the official said.

An earlier report from an Algerian security official that as many as 80 people had died in the assault – including hostages and attackers – appears to have overstated the toll, but the official had cautioned that many bodies discovered during a sweep of the facility were badly disfigured, making it difficult to reach a total.

Algeria has not reported any military deaths from four days of confronting the fighters. Algerian authorities are typically reluctant to announce military losses.


Handout / AFP / Getty ImagesAn undated handout picture released by the BP petroleum company on January 16, 2013, shows their operation at the In Amenas field in the Sahara desert, 1,300 kilometres southeast of Algiers, close to the Libyan border. A military operation was ongoing Thursday at the Algerian gas plant where Islamist gunmen were holding dozens of Western hostages, the governments of Britain, France, and Norway said on January 17, 2013.
The attack began early Wednesday with the attempted hijacking of two buses filled with workers outside the complex. Repelled by Algerian forces, the militants moved on the main complex, armed with missiles, mortars and bombs for their three explosives experts, said Prime Minister Sellal. They split into two groups, with one infiltrating the complex’s living quarters and the other the gas plant.

Sellal praised the quick wits of a guard who tripped an alarm that stopped the flow of gas and warned workers of an imminent attack.

“It was thanks to him that the factory was protected,” he said.

Floria, the former hostage from Romania, remembered the moment when the power was cut.

“I ran together with other expats and hid under the desks in my office, locking the door. Attackers went scanning the office facility kicking the doors in. Luckily our door did not break and they went on to other offices,” he said. “Locals were freed, the attackers made clear from the beginning that only foreigners were a target. Expats were detained.”


Algerie TV / The Associated PressIn this image taken from Algerian TV broadcast on Sunday, showing what it said was the aftermath of the hostage crisis at the remote Ain Amenas gas facility in Algeria.
“The perception of time changes. Seconds become hours. You feel you are losing your mind. I went through this for almost 40 hours,” he said.

The prime minister said the heavily armed militants had prepared the attack for two months. He said the attackers arrived from northern Mali and had planned to return there with the foreign hostages. Seven French citizens taken hostage in recent years are thought to be held by al-Qaida linked groups in northern Mali.

Sellal justified the helicopter attack Thursday on vehicles filled with hostages out of the fear the kidnappers were attempting to escape.

In a statement, the Masked Brigade, the group that claimed to have masterminded the takeover, has warned of more such attacks against any country backing military intervention in neighboring Mali, where the French are trying to stop an advance by Islamic extremists. Algeria, despite its government’s reservations about the French decision, is allowing French jets to overfly.


ANI/HandoutMokhtar Belmokhtar - The daring raid on the BP facility at In Amenas was carried out in the name of Belmokhtar, who lost his left eye in combat and has been reported dead at least twice, most recently in June.
Col. Thierry Burkhard, the French military spokesman, said he did not know if militants in Mali were aware of the events in Algeria.

“However, I’m convinced the terrorist groups in the field have radios, so there’s a strong chance that they’re not only up to date with what’s happening in Algeria but they’re listening to everything that Western journalists are saying about the deployment of different forces in the field,” he said.

The militants’ operation was led by an Algerian, Amine Benchenab, who was known to security services and was killed during the assault, Burkhard added.

Moktar Belmoktar, who is believed to have orchestrated the attack, said in a statement over the weekend that the Algerian site was chosen after the country opened its airspace.

Sellal said negotiating was essentially impossible.

“Their goal was to kidnap foreigners,” he said. “They wanted to flee to Mali with the foreigners, but once they were surrounded they started killing the first hostages.”

He said the assault by Algerian special forces on the plant on Saturday that killed the last group of militants and hostages came after the kidnappers attempted to destroy the complex: “They led us into a real labyrinth, in negotiations that became unreasonable.”

Associated Press reporters Paul Schemm in Rabat, Morocco, Lori Hinnant and Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris, Bradley Klapper in Washington, Rob Gillies in Toronto, and Nicolae Dumitrache and Vadim Ghirda in Pitesti, Romania, contributed to this report

 

[The Bread Guy]

A reminder from a think tank analyst writing for the BBC:

.... Since 2008, when Canada's anti-terrorism legislation recorded its first conviction, there has been a steady increase in the number of terrorism-related arrests and prosecutions.

Over two dozen Canadians have been arrested or indicted on terrorism-related crimes in Canada and abroad, the vast majority inspired by al-Qaeda.

Canada's spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), said last year that it was monitoring 250 people suspected of being involved in terrorism, up from 200 in 2010, and it was spending just under half of its $514m (£326m) annual budget on counter-terrorism.

A "massive, massive effort" for a country with a population of 34 million people, according to CSIS Director Richard Fadden ....

 

[a_majoor]

A look at how Canadians are being radicalized. If the insights in the article are true, then there are perhaps some openings to interrupt the process of conversion, or otherwise break the cycle. Prevention is always easier than having to play "whack a mole" with dedicated converts to some warrior cult:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/08/joining-the-world-of-radical-islam-extremism-offers-troubled-young-canadians-a-reason-to-feel-superior/

Joining the world of radical Islam: Extremism offers troubled young Canadians a reason to feel superior

Stewart Bell | Feb 8, 2013 8:27 PM ET | Last Updated: Feb 8, 2013 8:32 PM ET
More from Stewart Bell | @StewartBellNP

Two years ago, an Australian police officer named Joe Ilardi arrived in Toronto to try to answer a disturbing question: what was turning some young Canadians into raving Islamists who yearned to wage anti-Western violence at home and abroad?

With the help of the RCMP, Senior Sgt. Ilardi interviewed seven young Toronto men he defined as “Canadian Muslim radicals.” All but one, an immigrant from Pakistan, were Canadian-born. Four had converted to Islam, including a former Mohawk Warrior.

After meeting the men several times for up to six hours in total, Sgt. Ilardi came to an unconventional conclusion: while they had bought into the narrative that justifies violence as a response to the West’s so-called “war on Islam,” they had done so largely for personal reasons.

They were not the downtrodden seeking political justice. Rather, they were deeply troubled youths who had found, in extremism, a reason to feel superior. In their minds, they had joined an exclusive fraternity that knew the truth. They weren’t losers after all; they were better than everyone else.

“The appeal of an ideology which replaced feelings of inferiority with superiority, or which provided clarity of purpose where previously there was only purposelessness, for some men, seemed irresistible,” noted Sgt. Ilardi, a member of the Counter-Terrorism Coordination Unit of the Melbourne-based Victoria Police.

His conclusions on how they become infatuated with jihadist ideology offer insights into a problem that is putting Canadians at risk and damaging Canada’s international reputation as more Canadian terrorists are identified overseas — most recently in Bulgaria and Algeria.

This week, a suspected Canadian member of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah was blamed for the July 18, 2012 bombing of a bus full of Israeli tourists on their way to the Black Sea coast. An Australian is also suspected of involvement. Six died in the blast.

Two weeks ago, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalik Sellal said a pair of Canadians were involved in last month’s siege at the In Amenas gas plant that left 38 workers dead. Witnesses told reporters one of the attackers was a blonde-haired Canadian, possibly of Chechen origin.

The RCMP is investigating but has not yet publicly confirmed any of the attackers were Canadians. “Canadian officials are on the ground in Algeria working with Algerian officials to get the necessary information,” Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s spokesman, Rick Roth, said Friday.

Another Canadian, William Plotnikov, a former Toronto boxer and Seneca College student, was killed by Russian security forces in Dagestan last July while fighting with Islamist rebels. He had become radicalized by a Toronto imam after converting, according to his father.

Canadian volunteers have been turning up in Somalia as well. In 2009, a half-dozen Somali-Canadians youths left to join the al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabab. In 2011, a 25-year-old was arrested at Toronto’s Pearson airport as he was allegedly leaving to join.

“CSIS is aware of at least 45 Canadians, possibly as many as 60, many in their early twenties, who have travelled or attempted to travel from Canada to Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen to join al Qaeda-affiliated organizations and engage in terrorism-related activities,” Richard Fadden, the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, testified last April.

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The flow of wide-eyed Canadians to overseas hotspots, and fears they could return to carry out attacks at home, led to the introduction of legislation last year specifically making it illegal to leave Canada with the intent of committing terrorism.

Like Canada, Australia has not been successfully attacked on its soil, but it has been experiencing similar problems with radicalization — which prompted Sgt. Ilardi’s trip to Canada between March and June 2011. While he is still finalizing his research paper for publication, he shared his findings with the National Post.

Seven may be a small sample size from which to draw conclusions, but Sgt. Ilardi has credentials. A police officer for two decades, he has been working in counter-terrorism for 10 years and has a PhD in the role of intelligence in counter-terrorism. He is part of a team studying radicalization at Monash University in Melbourne.

His analysis of the Canadian extremists he met identified explanations that run counter to the stereotype that depicts extremists as inevitable products of the injustices of the Western world. In fact, he said most of the interviewees were politically unaware before they were indoctrinated into radical Islam.

Certainly, they were not living the Canadian dream. They had come from broken homes, and had drug, alcohol and gambling addictions. Some had been imprisoned for violent crimes. One had converted to Islam moments after he had intended to take his own life.

What extremism gave them was a perch from which to look down on other Canadians as ignorant and misguided. “These feelings were in stark contrast with those typically experienced by these men prior to their immersion in the world of radical Islam,” Sgt. Ilardi said.

A 2009 paper on radicalization, published on the RCMP website, came to a somewhat similar conclusion, noting extremism provided followers with “a means of explaining the world but — just as importantly — with a sense of personal meaning and a cause for which to fight.”

Ever since the 9/11 attacks, Canadians have been puzzling over the motives of the extremists among them, from the Khadrs and Ontario al-Qaeda member Mohammad Jabarrah to Ottawa’s Momin Khawaja and the Toronto 18. In 2010, three men were arrested in Ontario over an alleged plot to conduct attacks in Canada.

The latest case involves an unnamed Lebanese who moved to Vancouver with his parents at the age of eight. Although he left Canada four years later, he had by then acquired a Canadian passport. Last June, he allegedly used it to enter Bulgaria to conduct a bombing for Hezbollah.

The limited time he spent in Canada suggests he was radicalized in Lebanon, but as a Canadian citizen, he could have returned at any time. Instead, he allegedly chose to use his Canadian passport to kill tourists in Europe.

The Canadians interviewed by Sgt. Ilardi were also eager to engage in violence. They wanted to fight abroad. Significantly, they didn’t. They were deterred by the arrests of other extremists, or came to realize the error of their ways, in some cases when the anti-Western narrative they had been spoon-fed failed to match their positive interactions with Canadians.

“Just as personal relationships proved instrumental in these men’s radicalization,” Sgt. Ilardi noted, “so too were they in helping individuals reassess and recalibrate the theological and practical implications of engaging in jihad.”

National Post

• Email: sbell@nationalpost.com | Twitter: StewartBellNP

 

[Journeyman]

Interesting article. 

I think Stewart Bell is one of the few credible Canadian 'journalists' in this field. He seems to "do his homework" rather than just skew cherry-picked tidbits to fit a preconceived agenda.

 

[jollyjacktar]

IIRC many of the 70's terrorists in Europe such as Carlos "the Jackal" came from pretty good backgrounds too.  That is to say they were not slum dwellers but bored, spoiled rich kids in some cases.  Seems as if things don't particularly change in the West.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Not exactly a new angle for those that have seriously studied terrorism in first world countries...but a fact based position that never seem to find favour with the press and politicians.

I guess it's because doing something about it would be a huge undertaking with little to actually report on or show up as a result.

For anyone interested in more on the same topic, I highly  recommend Harvard Professor Louise Richardson's "What Terrorists Want - Understanding the Ennemy, Containing the Threat", 2006, Random House, New-York.

 

[OldSolduer]

IIRC many of the 70's terrorists in Europe such as Carlos "the Jackal" came from pretty good backgrounds too.  That is to say they were not slum dwellers but bored, spoiled rich kids in some cases.  Seems as if things don't particularly change in the West.

You are correct. A number of terrorists did come from middle to upper class families.

 

[Edward Campbell]

And more on this, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/canadas-looking-for-terrorists-in-all-the-wrong-places/article8410607/
My emphasis added

Canada’s looking for terrorists in all the wrong places

DOUG SAUNDERS
The Globe and Mail

Published Saturday, Feb. 09 2013

Somewhere in Canada today, someone is making plans to set off a bomb that will kill as many people as possible.

We can be fairly certain of this. The past month alone saw three Canadians accused of helping carry out acts of terrorism, two in Algeria and one in Bulgaria. While Canada has very low rates of domestic terrorism and violent extremism, those rates are not zero. There are believed to be several dozen Canadians actively involved with violent Islamist groups. Someone, almost certainly, is planning the next explosion.

That leads to two questions: How do we find him? And how do we prevent such violent extremists from being created on (or imported onto) Canadian soil?

We now have far better answers than we did a few years ago. In fact, we have a very clear picture of what makes people into violent radicals – and what doesn’t.

This week, a large-scale research report by Canada’s spy agency, obtained by Globe and Mail reporter Colin Freeze, reveals that much of what we tend to believe is wrong. In A Study of Radicalization: The Making of Islamist Extremists in Canada Today, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service analyzes data on all known Canadian extremists.

They are almost always native-born Canadians, rarely immigrants, and never refugees. They tend to have “a high level of academic achievement,” often a university degree, especially in “scientific, computer and engineering fields.”

Not only are they not immigrants, but they don’t tend to be found within “parallel society” immigrant enclaves. “None appeared to have been marginalized within Canadian society,” CSIS says, and the great majority appear “highly integrated into Canadian society.” And they aren’t radicalized by attending a mosque.

This report’s findings are virtually identical to those of several larger studies conducted recently. Britain’s MI5 analyzed several hundred violent extremists and found similar non-immigrant (or convert) backgrounds – and that, as in Canada, these terrorists don’t come from religious backgrounds. “Most are religious novices,” the security service concluded, and, in fact, “there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalization.”

Likewise, Mark Fallon, a former U.S. counterterrorism officer, found that migration experiences, religious traditions and theology almost never caused radicalism; it was a matter of local, personal influences persuading people to believe a political narrative.

There are important conclusions we can draw from these findings. The first is that immigrants, and immigrant communities, have little directly to do with terrorism. They are among those very unlikely to become radicalized. It’s not a matter of people bringing foreign attitudes and beliefs to Canada; extremists gained their political ideas here, often from local influences.

As a result, revoking the citizenship of people convicted of terrorism – as Immigration Minister Jason Kenney proposed this week – will do little to combat or deter extremism. Nor will spying on communities of ordinary religious Muslim immigrants, as the New York Police Department admitted it had done for six years (and it didn’t find a single piece of actionable evidence after investigating thousands of people). As the CSIS report grimly concludes, it’s not that easy.

Second, this isn’t a matter of religion causing extremism. Yes, Islamic terrorists are, by definition, very religious, but they usually adopt this religion after becoming radicalized politically. The path from strict religious faith to violence simply doesn’t exist – in fact, the most religious are among the least likely to become extremists.

This is a political movement based on a territorial claim (what CSIS calls the “common narrative,” which involves securing the “land of Islam” and attacking those who invade or humiliate it). As such, it has more in common with earlier terrorist movements (the IRA, the FLQ) than it does with any widespread beliefs within diaspora communities.

This doesn’t make things easy for police or governments. It’s a criminal tendency, neither imported nor theological, not rooted in communities or faiths. At the very least, we now know where we shouldn’t bother looking.

But, Doug Saunders is wrong ... while I agree that religion doesn't, normally, cause extremism, Islamic terrorists, as Saunders himself points out, "are, by definition, very religious ... they usually adopt this religion after becoming radicalized politically." Being very religious they will seek out mosques that support their radical ideas and that is one of the places where the security services should look.

Saunders is flogging an idea and a book, The Myth of the Muslim Tide, that have some basis in fact but are, at their root, fed more by politically correct, ideological hope than real research.

 

[Robert0288]

That is to say they were not slum dwellers but bored, spoiled rich kids in some cases.  Seems as if things don't particularly change in the West.

Sounds very similar to the 'professional' protester I ran into at universities.  These are the same people who seemed to latch onto occupy movement, G7/G8 protests, Student riots in quebec last summer, and even the idle no more movement.  I'm definitely NOT saying that these are terrorists.  But rather the same base of people in terms of age, socio-economic status and education  which appear to be the most easily radicalized into political groups regardless of the groups political outlook.  (eg; left wing, right wing, religious, environmental etc...)

For anyone interested in more on the same topic, I highly  recommend Harvard Professor Louise Richardson's "What Terrorists Want - Understanding the Ennemy, Containing the Threat", 2006, Random House, New-York.

Thanks I'll take a look at it.

 

[Old Sweat]

And the same segment of society spawned many of the radicals of the sixties and the terrorist groups of the seventies. There must be something, perhaps it is a sense of injustice for having so much while others have so little or maybe just boredom or perhaps being over-educated and under-challenged, that led many to social activism and a very few to gravitate to extreme points of view and action.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Having been to numerous Mosques here, I think I will disagree with some of the report. There are immigrants here that are bidding their time and work slowly and carefully on grooming people for radical Islamist groups. As membership in these "closed clubs" is limited to people with  I suspect CSIS has a harder time penetrating them then they would like to admit. I also suspect that Canada, like Malaysia offers to many other benefits to radical groups for them to attack here. That may change at some point. But for the moment they don't like to poop in their own bed. I do agree that the people the radicals target for long term grooming and recruitment are likely the more educated as that makes them a high value commodity. Far better to recruit fighters from places where life is hard and people are tough. The recruited Canadians will be planners, builders, logistical support and technical support types.   

 

[kevincanada]

I once told a Muslim man from Pakistan that I can't stand catholicism.  Boy did that peak his interest and I got a ear full too  ;D

Here is the original report on the MI5 findings.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/20/uksecurity.terrorism1

 

[jollyjacktar]

A good article from the SOMNIA website.  Shared under the provisions of Sec. 29 of the Copyright Act.

Cree jihadist: How a boy from a Saskatchewan reserve came to embrace Islamist extremism

Stewart Bell | Feb 22, 2013 9:06 PM ET | Last Updated: Feb 23, 2013 4:24 PM ET
More from Stewart Bell | @StewartBellNP

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.

“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.”

Nonetheless, Dawood said he was not an extremist. He said he opposed terrorism and two years ago had called CSIS to report that he had been approached by a Pakistani-Canadian who wanted to blow up the CN Tower. “That’s not the prophet’s teaching,” he said. “He never taught anything that was, ‘Go kill them wherever you see them.’”

But he is all for waging what he calls “defensive jihad,” which he defined as “defending against people who are in Muslim lands who shouldn’t be.” While he once wanted to travel to Yemen, because Awlaki was there, he said he decided against it. “I was going to go but I thought of my kids,” he said. Instead, he encourages other Canadians to make their way to places like Somalia to take up arms.

He also said he had solicited donations in Toronto for Taliban families, even though his brother is a member of the Canadian Forces. “He won’t even talk to me,” he said of his brother. “I’ve made it very clear to my brother that I disagree with him being in this military.”

In an interview, Dawood called Islam the most important thing in his life. Meeting with a reporter at a McDonald’s in Sarnia, he wore a Muslim skullcap and a thin beard. His 10-year-old son wore a T-shirt with a large hole in the front. His mother had cut out the shirt’s logo, a symbol of an animal, since idolatry is forbidden for observant Muslims.

It was a weekday but the boy was home from school because it was Valentine’s Day — also forbidden. A post on Dawood’s Facebook page explained that taking part in non-Muslim celebrations was prohibited because it “implies that one is pleased with their false beliefs and practices.”

While he said he had not taken part in any terrorist plots, he acknowledged the government considered him a terrorism supporter. He said CSIS officers had labelled him an extremist and called his views inappropriate.

Even the Muslim leader who converted Dawood said he disagreed with his views on violence. “He’s unstable,” said Muhammad Robert Heft. “The bottom line with Dawood is he doesn’t know very much about the religion.” He said Dawood relied too much on the Internet. “He follows Mufti Yahoo or Sheikh Google. I think with him it’s got to do more with wanting attention.”

But attention-seeking fanatics who sanctify violence with half-baked scripture can be dangerous. Several members of the Toronto 18 terrorist group that planned attacks in Southern Ontario in 2006 were converts. Soon after he converted, William Plotnikov, a Toronto boxer and Seneca College student, left Canada to join an Islamist rebel group in the Caucuses. Russian security forces shot him dead last July.

“Converts in particular are prone to extreme views because of their newfound zeal,” CSIS wrote as long ago as 2004 in Canadian Converts to Radical Islam, a report released under the Access to Information Act. “Al-Qaeda and like-minded organizations are aware of the usefulness of converts for a variety of purposes: spreading propaganda, logistical support and knowledge of the West, among others.”

An outspoken critic of extremism, Mr. Heft said that without proper support, converts can become vulnerable to a hardline message, particularly if they are not accepted into the larger Muslim community.

“So they get disenfranchised and then they become bitter. And when they become bitter they end up finding somebody who has an understanding of the religion that fits in with their feeling of being an outcast,” he said. “It happens not only to new Muslims but newly practising Muslims.”

Dawood’s Facebook page is a blend of Islamic and aboriginal causes: a video that calls democracy a sin; another on the “sacred war” in Mali; and Idle No More slogans. He runs an organization called Northern Dawah that hands out Korans to aboriginal people and claims to have converted some of them.

“Being aboriginal puts me on a platform that you deal with racism on a daily basis,” he said in a YouTube video about his conversion. One of his “favourite videos” on YouTube is “Last Message to the West,” which shows Awlaki in a camouflage jacket declaring war against America. “I specifically invite youth to either fight in the West or join their brothers on the fronts of jihad — Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia,” Awlaki says in the clip, his parting shot before a drone-fired missile killed him.

The tattoo on Dawood’s forearm, which he got in Thailand, symbolizes peace, love and happiness. But his life has been a struggle for all three.

Born with fetal alcohol syndrome, Dawood grew up in Keeler, Sask. His mother, a Cree, was a prostitute and alcoholic who abandoned her children for weeks at a time to party in Moose Jaw. Sometimes she would shave Dawood’s head and send him out to hustle money by pretending to be a cancer patient, he said. His father was a Swede and an abusive drunk who worked on the railroad, he said.

At an early age, he was sent to foster homes where he was sexually abused. He started running away at age 11 and, after beating a man who later died, spent two years at a youth detention facility. He ended up on the streets of Vancouver, addicted to crack cocaine.

Hoping to sober up, he moved to Toronto, Montreal, Thunder Bay and Hamilton, where he joined Mohawk Warriors at a land dispute in Caledonia, Ont. But even after the birth of his son, he couldn’t stop drinking.

In May 2008, he was living in Toronto, collecting welfare and confined to a wheelchair because of a car accident. Child services was after him because he was leaving his son at home alone to go drinking. He said he wrote a suicide note and mixed a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs.

Before he could do it, though, his son appeared and said he loved him. He believed it was a message from Allah, whom he had asked for help after meeting a Muslim on a bus. (He said he had previously turned to Jesus and Buddha, to no effect).

Convinced divine intervention had spared his life, he went to his computer and Googled “convert-to-Islam-Toronto.”

What came up was the website of Paradise 4 Ever, a non-profit that helps Muslim converts. Still drunk, he converted over the phone to Mr. Heft. The next day, he went to the P4E office and Mr. Heft gave him a skullcap, a white robe and money to buy groceries.

Early on, Dawood was drawn to the strict Salafist brand of Islam, which preaches that Muslims must shun Western life and live according to ancient laws and codes. The rigidity worked for him and he clung to it, fearing that straying meant going back to addiction.

Eager to learn but not a strong reader, he watched Awlaki on video. One of the lectures was about jihad. The concept came easily to him, since he already viewed Canada as an occupying power that terrorized and oppressed aboriginal people. That Muslims should also defend themselves from the West was just an extension of that view.

He said he went to a Toronto mosque popular among Afghans and asked how he could support the Taliban. He was given an email account where he could leave messages for people in Pakistan who would arrange money transfers, although he insisted it was only meant for the families of Taliban fighters and not for weapons. Because he had little money himself, he encouraged others to use the system to donate.

In addition, he began burning DVDs of Awlaki’s lectures and distributing them at Toronto mosques, he said. He also began discussing jihad with “brothers,” some of whom wanted to attack Canada and the United States. “I didn’t totally agree with that,” he said.

A few of his acquaintances left for Somalia, Afghanistan and Yemen, he said. “Some have come back, some are still there. Some are still alive,” he said. “My view is, I’m OK with it as long as they’re defending brothers and sisters. I will always have that view and I believe every Muslim should have that view.” But he said his ties to those who had gone off to fight brought him to the attention of CSIS, although he would not co-operate with investigators.

CSIS Director Richard Fadden testified last year that 45 to 60 Canadians had travelled — or attempted to travel — overseas to join “al-Qaeda-affiliated organizations and engage in terrorism-related activities.” A primary concern is that they might survive and return to foment more radicalism and violence.

The government is now considering legislation that would make it a crime to leave Canada for the purposes of participating in terrorist groups. “I disagree with it, of course,” Dawood said. He said Canadians had the right to join overseas jihads. “At the end of the day, there are people who deserve to be protected.”

National Post

sbell@nationalpost.com | Twitter: StewartBellNP

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/22/cree-jihadist-how-a-boy-from-a-saskatchewan-reserve-became-a-national-security-concern/

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Just ship him to some 3rd world Islamic country, he will get over soon enough when he see how life really is.

 

[jollyjacktar]

If only we could...

 

[Kat Stevens]

Hmmmm, this can't be right...

 

[57Chevy]

Canadian Muslim Lobby Rejects New Terror Laws
Israel National News
26 Feb, News Brief is shared with provisions of The Copyright Act

The Canadian Muslim lobby, CAIR-CAN, has launched a campaign against new legislation designed to help intelligence and law enforcement officials in their struggle against terrorism at home, Shalom Toronto reports.

The organization issued a statement issued calling Muslims in Canada to join acts of protest against the legislation, Bill S-7.

The law empowers security forces to make preventive arrests, avoid disclosing evidence to the suspect when necessary and allows them to require prisoners to testify behind closed doors before a judge. The judge, for his part, has the authority to impose a prison sentence of up to one year, if the suspect does not cooperate.