Belgium’s big problem with radical Islam – The Washington Post

2016/03/24 Leave a comment

One of the better pieces I have seen, although over-mechanically emphasizes some of the causes of radicalization:

Of all the countries in the West, Belgium has produced the greatest number of foreign jihadists per capita who are fighting in Syria. The actual figure, according to researchers, is variously estimated at 470 to 553. Roughly a third of those who left to fight in Iraq and Syria have returned; many have not faced prosecution, with authorities struggling to prove that the fighters joined violent organizations such as the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL.

According to an analysis by the Royal Institute for International Relations, or Egmont, a Brussels-based think tank, the majority of Belgian jihadists are young (ages 20 to 24), have lower-than-average education levels and are mostly of Moroccan heritage.

The prevalence of Islamist extremism in Belgium predates the incidents of the past year, as well as the advent of the Islamic State. And this is not the first time an Islamic State proxy has struck on Belgian soil: In May 2014, a gun-wielding French national who had spent time in Syria killed four people in the Jewish Museum of Brussels.

The root causes of radicalization are largely familiar: high unemployment, marginalization, discrimination and a sense of alienation from the wider society.

BuzzFeed’s Joshua Hersh spent time in Molenbeek and came away with this picture of a downtrodden, disgruntled community:

“Unlike the infamous banlieues of Paris — the rundown high-rise suburbs that symbolize France’s failure to integrate its own Muslim immigrant residents — Molenbeek is practically in the middle of Brussels; it’s just two metro stops west of the central train station. Still, Molenbeek can feel deeply isolated. The immigrants of Brussels, most of them Muslim and of North African descent, are highly concentrated there — the schools they attend, shunned by white Belgian families, are disparagingly referred to as “concentration schools,” after the high percentage of immigrants enrolled, and the poor conditions. “I didn’t believe it was this bad when I first started,” said a teacher who works at a mostly immigrant school near Molenbeek. “The schools, all they do is accentuate the problems the students face in their daily lives.””

Moreover, as my colleague Michael Birnbaum reported, Belgium’s pronounced linguistic divisions between Dutch-speaking Flanders, the largely French-speaking city of Brussels and the region of Wallonia to the south have made it difficult for some immigrant groups to assimilate. This is particularly true of those living in Flanders, where far-right Flemish nationalist parties hold real sway and inveigh against the dangers of Islam.

“The Islamic State is giving them what the Belgian government can’t give them — identity, structure,” Montasser AlDe’emeh of the University of Antwerp told Birnbaum. “They don’t feel Moroccan or Belgian. They don’t feel part of either society.”

According to the Egmont report, the current crop of Belgian extremists are significantly younger than earlier generations, which went off to join the ranks of al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist groups. That radicalization is driven less by religious fervor than by more local factors, and it is shaped also by ties to gangs and other criminal activity:

“Their acquaintance with religious thought is undoubtedly more shallow and superficial than their predecessors’, as is their acquaintance with international politics. Geopolitics is less important to them than it once was to their predecessors, who felt motivated by the struggle against the superpowers. Injustice was often a starting point with their predecessors’ journey towards extremism and terrorism. This has now largely been overshadowed by personal estrangement and motives as the primary engines of their journey.”

Source: Belgium’s big problem with radical Islam – The Washington Post

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with , , ,

Hoping to escape stigma, mother of Islamic State militant leaves Canada

2016/03/23 Leave a comment

Sad, given her courage in going public to encourage more open discussion on the radicalization process and related efforts to help reduce the risks (see Mother of fallen Canadian jihadi launches de-radicalization effort):

A Calgary woman whose son was killed while fighting for the Islamic State in Syria has left Canada, saying she was labelled “the mother of a terrorist” and unable to find full-time work.

Christianne Boudreau said she moved to France two months ago, hoping to escape what she called the stigma linked to the activities of her oldest son, Damian Clairmont, 22. His reported death in January, 2014, prompted Ms. Boudreau to ask questions in hopes of understanding his slow slide into extremism. She has done multiple media interviews and spoken with researchers delving into radicalization.

She also needs to work again to pay the bills that piled up during her bereavement. In search of a full-time job, Ms. Boudreau said she was met with a recurring theme: She would call for an interview and leave her name, only to be told there was nothing available – a possibility given Alberta’s slumping economy. But when she did secure an interview, she was told hours later that the company had changed its mind.

Ms. Boudreau hired a headhunter to find her work in Calgary and elsewhere across the country, but the results were no better.

“The headhunter told me it was because I was seen as the mother of a terrorist. [Companies] would say, ‘Something’s come up. We’ll call you back later.’ They’d be, ‘Yes, we know who you are. We’ve heard you on the radio,’” Ms. Boudreau said. “I never went through anger with that. I think it was more fear and frustration, not knowing where to turn next.”

What did happen was most unexpected. Ms. Boudreau was contacted by Eileen Thalenberg, a writer/director at Stormy Nights Productions in Toronto. She was looking to do a documentary on how young Canadians were being recruited to renounce their heritage and take up arms with the Islamic State or other smaller militant groups. In the pursuit of her story, Ms. Thalenberg looked to the families for answers. The only person who would talk was Ms. Boudreau, who is a central figure in an upcoming television documentary called A Jihadi in the Family. It airs Thursday night on CBC’s Firsthand.

“I started looking at questions: How vulnerable are we? What are we talking about, the number of kids going over there?” Ms. Thalenberg said. “And I went and looked at who I could speak to in terms of families, and nobody would speak to me, except Christianne. She is the only Canadian from the families who has spoken out about their kids going overseas.”

Source: Hoping to escape stigma, mother of Islamic State militant leaves Canada – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with , , ,

Liberals vow to review Canada’s poor record jailing Islamist fighters returning to country

2016/03/11 Leave a comment

Reasonable approach as part of the overall review under-way:

Canada’s poor record at jailing Islamist fighters returning from Syria and Iraq will be scrutinized as part of the government’s overhaul of the nation’s security apparatus.

The commitment Tuesday by Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, responsible for Canada’s chief spy agency and the RCMP, follows news that about 60 individuals in Canada are suspected to have returned from foreign battlefields and the ranks of the Islamic State, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

None have been charged, though Parliament in 2013 created four new criminal laws against leaving the country or attempting to leave to engage in terrorist activities. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) believes about 180 others from Canada are currently fighting with, or aiding, extremist movements overseas.

The numbers were revealed Monday by CSIS Director Michel Coulombe, testifying before the Senate’s committee on national security. The principal concern is that some of those who survive and return to Canada could use their combat skills to launch attacks here or become terrorist recruiters, fund-raisers and domestic organizers.

Goodale and RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson, appearing before the Commons public safety committee Tuesday, said the paucity of foreign fighter prosecutions — there has been just one — reflects the high evidentiary standards in Canada’s criminal courts. (Five other men have been charged in absentia, but two have reportedly been killed fighting in Syria.)

Gathering incriminating intelligence in a far-flung combat zone, then turning it into evidence to satisfy guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is tough. What’s more, CSIS has no law enforcement powers and terrorism-related criminal charges are up to the RCMP.

“It’s a challenge to be able to get the evidence that’s required to prove our cases to our standards here in Canada,” Paulson told reporters. “We have been improving collecting that evidence, but it is fundamentally an evidence-collection issue.”

Increasingly, police and other authorities are using heavy surveillance, immigration law, detentions, peace bonds and disruption tactics to watch, remove, control and thwart the activities of those who have returned.

Both Goodale and Paulson flatly rejected the notion of lowering criminal law thresholds.

Instead, Goodale said the issue will be included in the government’s promised review of Canada’s national security framework.

“How do you make that important transition from intelligence information to prosecutorial evidence? All of that is part of what we will be examining,” he said.

Source: Liberals vow to review Canada’s poor record jailing Islamist fighters returning to country | National Post

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with

Why stripping citizenship is a weak tool to fight terrorism: Roach and Forces

2016/03/07 Leave a comment

Usual good analysis and assessment:

First, even assuming that citizenship revocations produced the removal of dangerous people from Canada, that strategy would amount to anti-terrorism NIMBYism. More concretely, Canada would embark of a policy of catch and release – setting up today’s convicts as tomorrow’s foreign fighters, with travel to foreign locales facilitated by the Canadian government. It seems unlikely other countries would embrace the “return” of people converted to violence in Canada, and deposited on their doorstep because of a potentially tenuous residual link of nationality.

Nor would it be sensible to assume that deported former Canadians would thereafter be unable or uninterested in engineering acts dangerous to Canada and Canadians. Operating far from Canada and its security services, they would enjoy a greater freedom to do so than would those kept closer to home, under watch and potentially more invasive strictures, such as peace bonds.

Second, the provisions only applied to dual nationals. The rationale for this focus was simple – making someone stateless would violate Canada’s international obligations. But this focus on a small subset of Canadians encouraged the dangerous delusion that terrorism is (or can be made into) a foreign threat and problem. The so-called Toronto 18 plot, the terrorist attacks of October, 2014, and the 1985 Air India bombing underline the fact that terrorism is a Canadian phenomenon. Some of those plotters were dual nationals, others were not. In almost all of the recent terrorism cases, the violent radicalization of plotters was made-in-Canada, not the product of residence in some foreign locale.

Citizenship revocation for dual nationals is at best a capricious and close to arbitrary tool, focused not on a class of people who are the most objectively dangerous, but on a population most legally vulnerable to the extraordinary revocation power.

Third, the law now being repealed would in most cases commit Canada to long and costly battles about whether it can deport a convicted terrorist to countries such as Iran without the person running the risk of torture. This is a path we have been down before, with the infamous (and to date fruitless) security certificate disputes – legal proceedings that have consumed millions of taxpayer dollars and have yet to result in the removal of any of the five foreign-born men accused of terrorism and subjected to removal orders after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The costs here stem not only from the extensive litigation but also from the reputational hit Canada incurs when it risks complicity with torture. The O’Connor and Iacobucci inquiries into the role of Canadian authorities in contributing to the maltreatment of Canadians in foreign jails are now a decade old, but their lessons remain acute. Stripping someone’s nationality before sending him to a foreign jail in a torturing country does not change in the least the ethical or legal implications of such conduct.

Fourth, the prospect of deporting terrorists who have served their prison terms provides Canada with another excuse not to dedicate resources to problems of prison disengagement from terrorism and rehabilitation. The Western world is slowly awakening to the reality that many people convicted under broad, post-9/11 laws enacted to prevent terrorism before it happens will eventually be released. The idea of citizenship stripping encourages the illusion that Canada can displace the risk of terrorism, rather than take responsibility for fighting it through programs that counter violent extremism, including for people convicted of terrorist plots.

All of these points condemn citizenship revocation even without considering questions of constitutional law and principle. But those, too, are ripe – not least, the issue of whether our courts would have followed their U.S. counterparts and condemned citizenship revocation as an underhanded supplemental punishment for things a citizen did, while still a citizen.

Source: Why stripping citizenship is a weak tool to fight terrorism – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Citizenship, Radicalization, Revocation Tagged with ,

Why do so many jihadis have engineering degrees?

2016/03/02 Leave a comment

Long but interesting article on why so many radicalized individuals have an engineering background:

That takes Hertog and Gambetta (the researchers who conducted the study)  to the thorny question of “mindsets for extremists.” Different types of people are attracted to different kinds of extremism—engineers mostly on one side, social scientists and humanities grads on the other—and the authors went in search of traits found in both secular and jihadi extremists as well as among engineers. Three stand out among conservatives in general in recent psychological research: disgust (or the felt need to keep one’s environment pure, which can underpin everything from homophobia to xenophobia); the “need for cognitive closure” (a preference for order and certainty that can support authoritarianism); a very high in-group/out-group distinction.

These are present in particularly high concentration among Nazis and Salafists alike, while European surveys show engineers to be consistently more conservative than other students: moderately right-wing, anti-immigration and tough on crime. Whether the discipline makes the man—it’s worth noting engineering, like the virtually women-free world of right-wing extremists, is male-dominated—or the man seeks the discipline, Hertog is not prepared to say, but the correlation is undeniable. And so is what it points to: contrary to what seems obvious, religious faith does not so much drive Islamist terror as provide its cover.

Why do so many jihadis have engineering degrees?

Filed under Radicalization, Religion Tagged with ,

Spy agencies see sharp rise in number of Canadians involved in terrorist activities abroad – The Globe and Mail

2016/02/25 Leave a comment

Not totally unsurprising that the numbers have increased, as well as our ability to detect:

Canada’s spy agencies have tracked 180 Canadians who are engaged with terrorist organizations abroad, while another 60 have returned home.

The latest figures mark a significant increase from the findings of the 2014 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada, which identified about 130 people involved in terror-related activities overseas, including 30 taking an active role with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and the Nusra Front in Syria.

“The total number of people overseas involved in threat-related activities – and I’m not just talking about Iraq and Syria – is probably around 180,” Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Michel Coulombe told The Globe and Mail after testifying before the House of Commons public safety committee. “In Iraq and Syria, we are probably talking close to 100.”

These people are involved in various activities, including direct combat, training, fundraising to support attacks, promoting radical views and planning terrorist violence.

Mr. Coulombe said about 60 suspected foreign fighters have returned to Canada, although he stressed the numbers keep changing almost daily.

Source: Spy agencies see sharp rise in number of Canadians involved in terrorist activities abroad – The Globe and Mail

Phil Gurski’s take on their testimony:

I think the most important message in all this is that despite a rise in those who pose a real terrorist threat, the number is still relatively low, and perhaps manageable – though I will of course leave it to CSIS and the RCMP to make that call – in comparison to other countries.  Our allies in Europe and the Middle East are facing threats that are orders of magnitude larger than ours.  We here in Canada remain more or less safe: that does not mean that the threat is not real and that we can start shaving money and resources from our security intelligence and law enforcement agencies.  Again, though, it is important to see the positive side of this.  Sorry for the repetition, but the terrorist scourge does not represent an existential threat to this country and most likely never will.  The glass is half full people.

The current terrorist threat environment in Canada

 

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with , , ,

Luc Portelance and Ray Boisvert: It’s time for Canada to get serious about national security

2016/02/18 Leave a comment

Overview of the security agency perspective from Luc Portelance and Ray Boisvert. Challenge to the rest of government and society lies with counter-radicalization efforts, as they flag below:

Radicalization prevention begins at home, in our communities and across various levels of government. Furthermore, the development of counter-narratives to violent extremism must not be seen as the exclusive domain of security agencies. Counter-radicalization is a long-term battle of ideas that can only be won through collaborative action across society, and more specifically by applying proven commercial marketing strategies.

With the move of the multiculturalism program back to Canadian Heritage, there is an opportunity for the program to play a larger role in such policy discussions and initiatives than was the case recently at CIC/IRCC (as was done previously before the move to CIC/IRCC).

Source: Luc Portelance and Ray Boisvert: It’s time for Canada to get serious about national security | National Post

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization, Security Tagged with , , , , ,

Canadian women give birth to children of ISIS fighters

2016/02/17 Leave a comment

No real surprise here that Canada is not exempt from this trend of some women living in the West, hard as it is to understand why, both objectively and from their families’ perspective.

Decisions have consequences, as other accounts of women who have traveled to Iraq and Syria have found out (‘There’s no way back now’: For female ISIL members, Syria is one-way journey).

These studies are helpful to highlight this (fortunately small) trend, and more important, inform counter-extremism strategies:

Canadian women are helping to grow the so-called Islamic State.

According to researchers at the University of Waterloo, three Canadian women have given birth to children of ISIS fighters, while another two are pregnant. The new details are part of a larger study following foreign fighters who flee to Syria and Iraq. The women travelled separately over the past two years, leaving their families back home devastated.

“They’re quite worried about what is going to happen to their daughter, but also their grandchild,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, a co-lead author of the study. “For most of the parents, I think there’s kind of a double reaction. First they’re kind of happy a grandchild is involved, but at the same time, they’re quite devastated that a child was born into a war zone, to somebody they’ve never met.”

Amarasingam said the women are between the ages of 19 and 22, and are from British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. Families agreed to speak to the research team with the promise that specific personal details would be kept confidential. “Because there are so few Canadian women that have gone over, it will be quite obvious… who they are, if I talk (specifically) about where they are from.”

The researcher also said the challenges these women face are quite obvious. Although they have a place to live, it is difficult to find basic supplies like clothing and diapers. Some of the families back in Canada are keen to help their daughters, but are afraid of the legal consequences.

“If you were to send diapers to Syria, I don’t know if that contributes to real support of a terrorist organization, but it does rest on very shaky legal ground, in terms of what you’re allowed to send to a place like Raqqa,” said Amarasingam.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said this is “obviously a very disturbing development,” and recommitted to opening a national counter-radicalization office.

“We will be moving forward shortly, as rapidly as we can, on the creation of this new office for community outreach and counter radicalization,” said Goodale.

“I’m concerned with every dimension about this type of problem, it runs contrary to everything Canada stands for, in terms of values in the world,” he added.

The creation of a new office was part of a mandate letter from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the public safety minister late last year. The Liberals aren’t saying yet if funding for the office will be included in the upcoming budget, but there are signs this program will be a priority.

Amarasingam said the challenges these women face become more complex because of their age. “These girls are very young,” he added, “they don’t have much experience in how to raise children, but they’re also raising these children under circumstances many others don’t have to worry about.”

Source: Canadian women give birth to children of ISIS fighters | CTV News

Filed under Radicalization, Religion Tagged with , , , ,

RCMP’s portrayal of Islam in B.C. terror sting ‘dubious,’ expert says

2016/02/06 Leave a comment

The defence appears to have a point:

Police officers posing as spiritual guides in an undercover terrorism sting offered “dubious” and “eyebrow-raising” interpretations of Islam to a British Columbia man with extremist Muslim views, an Islamic expert says.

Omid Safi, head of Islamic studies at Duke University in North Carolina, told a B.C. Supreme Court on Thursday that the RCMP should have helped John Nuttall overcome his radical ideas, instead of preventing him from reaching out to mainstream, moderate religious leaders.

Mr. Nuttall and his common-law partner, Amanda Korody, were found guilty last summer of plotting to blow up the B.C. Legislature on Canada Day in 2013. Their convictions are on hold while lawyers argue the pair were entrapped by the RCMP.

“I have questions about particular aspects of the ways in which the police seem to have presented themselves as a model of spiritual guides, offering highly dubious interpretations of Islam, putting themselves in a position of authority,” Prof. Safi told the court.

“Those are all things that, to a scholar of Islam, certainly seem to be eyebrow-raising.”

Defence lawyers have depicted Mr. Nuttall and Ms. Korody as impoverished former heroine addicts, living on welfare, who spent most of their time playing video games in their basement suite in Surrey, B.C.

Prof. Safi described Mr. Nuttall’s understanding of Islam as shallow and superficial, informed by rambling and incoherent political grievances.

Transcripts from undercover surveillance recordings reveal Mr. Nuttall was searching for spiritual guidance and that he identified the main undercover RCMP officer as a religious authority and his one true Muslim brother, Prof. Safi said.

“I think that deradicalization – religious guidance from an authentic, certifiable imam with command over issues of Islamic law – would be the proper course of action,” Prof. Safi said when asked what the appropriate police response would be when dealing with a person who harboured extremist views.

In her cross-examination, Crown lawyer Sharon Steele pressed him, asking whether his perspective would differ if this person were in the midst of organizing a violent plot.

“It would only add to the urgency of putting that person in touch with a qualified, scholarly source,” he replied.

Ms. Steele presented Prof. Safi with instances in which Mr. Nuttall called into question the authority of mainstream religious leaders and railed against their views of Islam. She questioned whether this behaviour was an precursor to violence.

“I wish I could tell you that that’s a sign of a jihadist. It’s not. It’s a sign of hotheadedness,” Prof. Safi said, adding that he’s encountered that exact situation dozens of times over his 24 years as a university professor.

“[It’s] hotheaded 18-year-old kids who think that they know everything about the faith getting up and telling a professor of Islamic studies, who has a PhD, you’re preaching a soft, watered-down, Westernized Islam for the infidels.

“What you’re seeing here of course is rude, it’s disrespectful. It’s also absolutely a part of the landscape of modern Islam.”

Source: RCMP’s portrayal of Islam in B.C. terror sting ‘dubious,’ expert says – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with , ,

Google Looks to Divert ‘Extremist’ Searches to Anti-Radicalization Sites | TIME

2016/02/04 Leave a comment

Interesting approach:

Google is experimenting with a program that would redirect U.K. users searching for words linked to religious extremism to content designed to counter radicalization, a company executive has said.

Anthony House, Google’s senior manager for public policy and communications, told British lawmakers in a parliamentary committee hearing about the pilot initiative, which was targeted at reducing the online influence of groups like ISIS, the Guardianreported Tuesday.

“We should get the bad stuff down, but it’s also extremely important that people are able to find good information, that when people are feeling isolated, that when they go online, they find a community of hope, not a community of harm,” House said.

At least 700 British citizens have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join jihadist organizations, the BBC reports.

Source: Google Looks to Divert ‘Extremist’ Searches to Anti-Radicalization Sites | TIME

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →