Farah Mohamed Shirdon of Calgary fighting with Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

2014/06/20 Leave a comment

The latest homegrown terrorist, Farah Mohamed Shirdon, Somali origin but raised in Calgary  (article does not say whether born here, but clear from his accent that spent most of his time in Canada). And the strong message from within the Muslim community against this:

“Our message to the youth has been crystal clear:  if someone is telling you that you will go to Paradise by blowing yourself up in a plane, a train or a public place taking your life and the lives of innocent people, then he is misleading you and committing a crime against the whole society and against the Islamic religion itself,” said Hacene Chebbani, the IISC’s director of religious affairs, in the news release.

Farah Mohamed Shirdon of Calgary fighting with Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – Canada – CBC News.

And on the silly – but dangerous – side:

Radical Islamists’ ideology marks soccer as enemy

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US Officials Fear Moner Mohammad Abusalha’s Jihad Video Will Inspire Others – NYTimes.com

2014/06/18 Leave a comment

More on home-grown terrorism, this time a US example:

Although the suicide bomber was not identified by nationality or name, a video was circulated last month that appears to have documented Mr. Abusalha’s mission. That previous video shows rebels loading what appear to be tank shells into a large vehicle that had been armored with metal plates. Later, there is a large explosion after the vehicle drives down a road.

Mr. Abusalha was born in Florida, played basketball as a teenager and was known as “Mo.” In high school, he would often sneak out to pray instead of study. His mother is American and his father Palestinian. They owned grocery stores in the Vero Beach, Fla., area.

After graduating from high school, he enrolled in three colleges but dropped out of each, and in 2012, he told friends he was moving to Orlando. Shortly thereafter he told friends he was moving to Jordan to take courses as a nursing assistant.

In the past year, he lost touch with his parents. His friends believe that he was recruited by extremists while he was living in Jordan. In Syria, he adopted a nom de guerre, Abu Huraira al-Amriki. He spent two months in a training camp of Nusra Front, the militant group, in Aleppo before going to the northern province of Idlib, where he carried out the suicide attack.

US Officials estimate that some 100 Americans have travelled to Syria. Seems a bit low given Canadian estimates of around 30.

Officials Fear Moner Mohammad Abusalha’s Jihad Video Will Inspire Others – NYTimes.com.

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It’s a mystery how middle-class Calgary man turned suicide bomber was recruited into ISIS terror group: family

2014/06/14 Leave a comment

More on the cases of Salman Asrafi and Damian Clairmont:

“To be honest, we don’t know what happened to Salman,” a relative said in an email exchange. He asked not to be identified because he did not want to be associated with Mr. Ashrafi’s suspected involvement in terrorism.

While his recruitment into ISIS is puzzling, it is evidence the strength of the extremist group is due partly to its recruitment of foreign fighters. Founded by Al-Qaeda members, it is one of three armed groups in the region that have attracted the most outside volunteers.

Mr. Ashrafi was a Pakistani-Canadian with no affiliation to Iraq. But in Calgary, he had apparently fallen in with a circle of extremists who lived in the same apartment building above a small Islamic centre. Those who run the centre said they had tried to discourage the zealous young men, but they formed their own prayer group.

According to an account posted online by one of the men, who now goes by Abu Dujana, they worshipped Anwar Awlaki, the pro-Al Qaeda propagandist whose videos urge Muslims in the West to either go abroad and fight or conduct terrorist attacks at home.

Isolated by their own accord and with no guidance except the Internet, they decided that being a Muslim meant “jihad and sacrifice for Islam” rather than attending seminars in “an air-conditioned university hall,” wrote Abu Dujana.

The historical figures they admired were uncompromising men of action. “They were not just talking the talk,” he wrote, “but actually walking the walk. They were busy either killing the enemies of Allah or being awarded with martyrdom by being killed in the battlefield.”

There were between three and five members of the group. They included Damian Clairmont, a Muslim convert with a history of mental problems, but another was an engineer named Wassim who divided his time between Toronto and Calgary.

Under the Government’s proposed revocation measures, if they hadn’t been killed, but returned to Canada, and convicted, Salman could be stripped of his Canadian citizenship as a dual national while Damian could not. Same crime, different punishment.

It’s a mystery how middle-class Calgary man turned suicide bomber was recruited into ISIS terror group: family | National Post.

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Made-in-Canada terror is real – and its being ignored – The Globe and Mail

2014/06/12 Leave a comment

Somewhat alarmist, and understating the work that has been done and continues to be done. I would not consider Public Safety, RCMP and CSIS activities as indifference; one can debate whether we are doing enough and the right things.

UK in its 2003 Prevent strategy over reached and was trimmed back in 2011. Community engagement and messaging became more important, and was largely successful in maintaining cross-community support post the Rigby killing.

Similarly in Canada, the relationships built up by the RCMP, CSIS and likely other police forces within affected communities are helping identify potential threats.

All plays into the revocation debate within C-24, as seen in Sheryl Saperia’s reference to this article in Wednesday’s hearing.

What might be the consequences of our continued indifference?

Inaction emboldens those seeking to radicalize our citizens to continue operating with impunity. The pipelines shipping our citizens to these jihadi hot spots become increasingly entrenched and more difficult to disrupt.

Another real possibility is the return of these citizens to Canada after their participation in foreign conflicts. They come back with a “postsecondary” degree in extremism, trained by hard-core foreign jihadists in real battlefield situations, posing a real terrorism threat.

There is a circularity to that threat: Radicalization leads to individuals travelling abroad, which then leads to … radicalization? Simply put, our inaction is potentially creating conditions for an even more potent and dangerous form of radicalization and recruitment than we are currently experiencing.

We will no longer simply need to be concerned about outsiders radicalizing and recruiting Canadians to go abroad and fight. Instead, the recruiters would be Canadians who have fought abroad: Credibility and a powerful narrative, their own experiences, would be shared with a much larger pool of friends, acquaintances and community members than an outside recruiter could ever hope to reach. We are already starting to see this unfold as individuals from Western states who have gone abroad to fight are increasingly using social media to relay their experiences to others.

Made-in-Canada terror is real – and its being ignored – The Globe and Mail.

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Jason Kenney says ‘there’s nothing we can do’ to stop extremists from leaving Canada to fight elsewhere

2014/06/10 Leave a comment

Sensible comments from Minister Kenney on the limits of what he government can do about Canadian extremists fighting abroad:

Canadian extremists fighting in Syria should be viewed as security risks when they come home but there is little the government can do to prevent them from leaving, Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney said in an interview Sunday.

“At the end of the day, if it’s a Canadian who’s been radicalized and they choose to leave this country, there’s nothing we can do to stop them,” he said. “You can’t have police standing at the airport detaining them as they seek to leave the country.

“What we can do is to try to monitor networks that recruit and radicalize youth,” he said. “They can’t catch every single instance but I think that the extremist networks know that there’s an extremely high level of vigilance in Canada.”…

“I think it’s a legitimate concern, not just with respect to anti-Semitism but violent extremism in general,” Mr. Kenney said. “Obviously, Westerners who’ve been radicalized to the point of risking their lives in fighting for, for example, Al-Qaeda-linked militants, constitute a prima facie security risk when they get back to their home countries.”

RCMP, as noted earlier, has a program to identify those most at risk (RCMP set to tackle extremism at home with program to curb radicalization of Canadian youth).

Interestingly, as C-24 Citizenship Act revisions advances to the Senate this week, Kenney made no distinction on single or dual nationals. He talks of “Canadians” and “Westerners,” while C-24, developed under his watch, authorizes revocation for dual citizens convicted of terror or treason-related offences.

Jason Kenney says ‘there’s nothing we can do’ to stop extremists from leaving Canada to fight elsewhere | National Post.

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UK – Jonathan Russell: Way forward on Islam question

2014/06/10 Leave a comment

Further to yesterday’s post (UK: Education Sec’y accused of using ‘Trojan Horse’ row to push anti-Islam agenda), more on the UK debates between the Home Secretary Theresa May and Education Secretary Michael Gove on extremism from Quillam Foundation (Michael Gove apologizes over ‘Trojan Horse’ row with Theresa May):

The Home Secretary has been strong on tackling the symptoms of extremism and has made good progress in improving the compatibility of counter-terrorism legislation with human rights, which is vital.

The Education Secretary on the other hand has always been strong on challenging the causes of extremism and his appreciation of the need to challenge non-violent extremism is spot on. The Birmingham schools investigations are ongoing and we expect to hear from Ofsted and the Department for Education shortly.

Blaming Gove or May for any extremism uncovered would be unhelpful. Instead it is time to appreciate that our approach to extremism of all kinds must be consistent, particularly in schools where vulnerable children might not be ready to make their own judgments on religious, social or political issues.

Of course the debate over the role that religion should play in education is nothing new.

To the vast majority of parents and society at large, however, there is nothing controversial about saying children should not be exposed to homophobic, anti-Semitic or religiously intolerant views and that children of different genders should be able to mix freely.

Now allegations have been made that in certain schools the rights of some young people to shape their view of the world in a free and open way have been compromised. If so this is a failure of the state which has potentially serious consequences for the health of our society.

The authorities have had some success in countering terrorism and reacting to some forms of extremism but a more coherent policy means more sustainable results.

Jonathan Russell: Way forward on Islam question | Comment | Daily Express.

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Canada’s young men joining foreign jihad: Are we doing enough to stop it?

2014/06/07 Leave a comment

More on home-grown radicalization and extremism (see Suicide bomber killed in Iraq part of wider jihadi base in Calgary):

Mahdi Qasqas, a Calgary Muslim youth leader and psychologist, says early intervention is key to preventing young men from going overseas to kill themselves and others.

“If a mother calls and says, ‘My son needs help,’ how will I look at it? Criminal perspective? Call the police. Risk to self-harm? We have to admit to hospital,” Qasqas said. “If she says, ‘Look, I’m seeing some warning signs.’ If your child listen to other people more than you? Then it’s time to connect him to a mentor.”

A prominent Calgary imam, Sayed Soharwardy, told CBC News he strongly believes that increased radicalization of young local men is happening at a “faster pace now” than a decade ago. He wonders why more potential jihadis have not been stopped at airports before even stepping foot on a battlefield.

“I am convinced that the intelligence people know who is recruiting, who is going overseas, who is fighting there,” the cleric said. “If they do not know every one of them, they know some of them.” …

In Ottawa on Wednesday, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander offered a warning to potential violent extremists.

“If you’re a dual national and you commit an act of terrorism in Canada or abroad, you will lose your Canadian citizenship,” he said.

Whether that will be enough of a deterrent is hard to know.

Canada’s young men joining foreign jihad: Are we doing enough to stop it? – Canada – CBC News.

And in Europe, following the terrorist attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels by a young radicalized Muslim who had fought in Syria, a new initiative to identify  and prevent potential jihadists.

Looks a bit like the RCMP initiative here in Canada (RCMP set to tackle extremism at home with program to curb radicalization of Canadian youth) but as the above article indicates, some are arguing that this is not enough:

Une série de mesures pour la « détection, la prévention et la dissuasion » ont été retenues au cours d’une réunion entre les ministres de l’Intérieur de neuf pays — Belgique, France, Allemagne, Royaume-Uni, Espagne, Italie, Danemark, Suède et Autriche — spécialement consacrée à cette menace djihadiste, en marge d’une réunion avec leurs homologues des autres pays de l’UE à Luxembourg.

L’UE va s’attaquer aux réseaux de recrutement de djihadistes | Le Devoir.

 

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Suicide bomber killed in Iraq part of wider jihadi base in Calgary

2014/06/06 1 Comment

More on home-grown radicalization, the most recent case being Salman Ashrafi:

Calgary is earning a reputation as a breeding ground for jihadi fighters.

The Muslim convert Damian Clairmont, who later took the name Mustafa al-Gharib, was killed while fighting with Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda-affiliated rebel group in Syria whose membership is made up largely of European, Australian and North American extremists.

Clairmont was also raised in Calgary, as were as many as two dozen other young men who, according to sources, have travelled to Syria to join rebel extremist groups to wage jihad in the last two years…..

“He might have been around certain charismatic preachers in the community that might not have had his best interests in mind,” he added.

It’s a thought shared by Soharwardy, the Calgary imam, who has received death threats for speaking out about this topic, but feels compelled to in order to stop men in his city from killing and dying on jihadi missions abroad.

“It is impossible for me to think the intelligence people do not know who is radicalizing Muslim youth. It is going on undercover; it is going on openly sometimes,” he said.

“The thing is they are recruiting Muslims to go and fight in Syria and getting them killed. It is horrible.… What is the Canadian government doing? Nothing. I mean this guy died, many, many … people died from our country. For what?”

While theoretical, given that both Clairmont and Ashrafi are dead, it is interesting to see how C-24 revocation provisions would apply in each case.

Clairmont was born in Canada and likely had no dual citizenship. Asrafi moved to Canada when he was in Grade 5 or 6, became naturalized but also has Pakistani citizenship.

Clairmont would keep his Canadian citizenship; Ashrafi would lose it even though he spent most of his childhood and early adulthood in Canada.

Easy to understand why most lawyers argue that this kind of different treatment would not be ruled Charter compliant.

Suicide bomber killed in Iraq part of wider jihadi base in Calgary – Canada – CBC News.

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ICYMI – Debate: Is al-Qaeda a global terror threat or a local military menace? – The Globe and Mail

2014/06/02 Leave a comment

Globe debate on Al-Qaeda and whether its strength today. Arguing for it being weaker is J.M. Berger:

Al-Qaeda has not abandoned terrorism, but it has adopted a default position of encouraging “lone wolf” attacks by non-networked supporters in the West. While this obviously represents an ongoing problem, individual actors do not represent the same magnitude of threat that manifested itself on September 11, nor do they require al-Qaeda to spend its own resources.

Holding territory is an inherently local activity, which has focused the resources of many jihadists on the countries where they dwell, rather than on attacking the U.S. homeland. Even al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — widely held to be the most dangerous al-Qaeda threat to the West — has attempted only a handful of attacks on the U.S. homeland. Each of the plots that have become public knowledge were lightly staffed and funded on a shoestring budget. AQAP’s resources are instead overwhelmingly devoted to battling the government of Yemen, where it is based.

For the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross argues the contrary:

But we should be cautious about repeating past mistakes, and prematurely penning the obituary of al-Qaeda’s senior leadership.

For their own part, al-Qaeda insiders reject the characterization that the group has become decentralized. Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir, an al-Qaeda official currently in Syria with its official affiliate, the Nusra Front, recently spoke at length about al-Qaeda’s bureaucracy. He described system known as aqalim – regionalization — wherein a different leader oversees each of the geographic locations where the group operates, but is subordinate through an oath of bayat (fealty) to al-Qaeda emir Ayman al-Zawahiri. One senior al-Qaeda official, known as the masul aqalim, is responsible for overseeing all the affiliates operating in different regions, coordinating with the regional emirs. Rather than disparate groups connected by little more than “loose ideology,” Abu Sulayman described a group with bureaucratic direction. His account appears more credible than that of The New York Times.

Debate: Is al-Qaeda a global terror threat or a local military menace? – The Globe and Mail.

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Whither the Muslim Brotherhood | hilltimes.com

2014/05/28 Leave a comment

Tom Quiggan and Danny Eisen (Canadian Coalition Against Terror – C-CAT) on the Muslim Brotherhood and their advocacy of a Canadian inquiry on the activities of the Brotherhood in Canada, similar to that in the UK:

Those opposing further investigation into the Brotherhood point to the Ikhwan’s current eschewal of violence and its support for democracy as emblematic of changes within the Ikhwan, notwithstanding the historic and ideological indicators cited above. But in doing so, they have often overlooked the fine print of the Ikhwani paradigm and the blazing headlines regarding the Brotherhood’s forays into terror sponsorship. They have ignored Brotherhood definitions of democracy as legitimate only when defined by its version of Sharia, and as a principle that can be accepted or rejected once Islamic rule is attained. They have allowed the Brotherhood’s democratic slogans to drown out its annihilationist proclamations against “international Judaism” and incitement and assaults against Egyptian Copts. They have sidestepped the Brotherhood’s endorsement of suicide bombings, not only against Israel, but in “Iraq, Afghanistan, and all [other] parts of our Muslim world.” And perhaps most seriously they have sanitized the Ikhwan’s moral and material support of Hamas. This terrorist organization, renowned for its rabid anti-Semitism and brutality towards Palestinians who do not endorse their path, is defined in its charter as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Whither the Muslim Brotherhood | hilltimes.com.

In other articles, they cast the net broader:

All this also shines some light on the libel suit recently launched by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and PMO spokesman Jason MacDonald, after MacDonald publicly noted NCCM’s “documented ties” to Hamas.

NCCM was formerly known as CAIR-CAN or the Council of American Islamic Relations-Canada. Its U.S. parent, CAIR-USA, was originally established by the Muslim Brotherhood and later designated by the U.S. Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, meaning it might have been suspected but was never charged with an offence. One of CAIR-CAN’s founding directors was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial, which pertained to the illegal funding of Hamas. Not coincidently, Hamas is defined in its charter as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. So despite the current denials by NCCM of any connection to the Brotherhood-affiliated CAIR-USA, the two organizations have extensive historical ties, with both groups having made repeated claims in the past that they are connected to each other.

Terrorists in our midst – Winnipeg Free Press

Which in turn provoked a response by NCCM:

Instead, they [Quiggan and Eisen] presented a conspiracy-laden diatribe that, in a sweeping stroke, smeared our long-standing Canadian organization as “terrorists” and despicably suggested we intend to destroy Canada from within.

By painting a far-fetched plot of sedition, the writers deliberately avoided the truth and mimicked the documented anti-Muslim cottage industry south of the border.

Rather than educate, their article misled readers by suggesting associations between known terrorist groups and Canadian Muslim organizations that have roundly condemned terrorism and extremism.

Since 2000, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) has engaged with fellow Canadians, promoting active citizenship and outreach. As a mainstream organization, we have worked tirelessly, educating Canadian Muslims about their rights and responsibilities, building mutual understanding between communities, participating in major public inquiries and appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada.

We participate in important coalitions with respected organizations such as Amnesty International Canada and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association to uphold fundamental rights and the rule of law — indeed, to help make Canada an even better place for all.

NCCM’s entire body of work is public and we have consistently denounced all forms of violent extremism and specifically condemned terror groups such as al-Qaida and Hamas. No amount of mudslinging will change these facts.

Anti-Muslim diatribe promotes false suspicion

Given the upcoming court case on PMO comments on NCCM (Muslim group sues PM, spokesman for defamation), we shall see how this debate continues.

When working on radicalization and extremism issues, the easier ones, relatively speaking, were those that involved violence and terrorism. But from a multiculturalism and integration perspective, non-violent extremism, for whatever reason, also can undermine the fabric of society.

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