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| Great White North |
| Canadian converts to radical Islam pose threat - CSIS |
| 2006-02-11 |
| The head of Canada's spy service has called Iraq a "post-graduate faculty for terrorism," but it's the threat from what are known as home-grown terrorists that most worries Canadian security services. Jim Judd, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told the Toronto Star in an interview last year the spy agency was aware of Canadians who had gone to Iraq to join the insurgency and was concerned about their eventual return to Canada. Iraq would provide a training ground, and those coming home would be "well-trained, highly effective, dangerous people," Judd said. However, CSIS believes fewer than 10 Canadians have gone to fight in Iraq. A far more disturbing trend, security officials say, is what is developing inside Canada's borders — citizens who may never have travelled abroad but have been motivated to extremism through radical websites and Internet chat rooms. An internal 2004 CSIS report entitled Canadian Converts to Radical Islam says such home-grown converts are particularly dangerous because of their familiarity with Western society. "The perception that the West is attacking Islam on multiple fronts continues to anger the Muslim world and contributes to support for radical views. Converts in particular are prone to extreme views because of their new-found zeal," states the report, obtained under access-to-information legislation. The case most often cited as an example of this phenomenon involves Mohamed Jabarah, a former St. Catharines, Ont., Catholic school student who is now in a New York jail after reportedly pleading guilty to terrorism charges at a secret hearing. Jabarah reportedly confessed to acting as an intermediary between Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah, a group believed responsible for bombings in Southeast Asia, including the Oct. 12, 2002, Bali blast that killed 202 people. Saudi Arabian security forces killed Jabarah's older brother, Abdul Rahman Jabarah, in 2003. The 23-year-old was accused of being one of the key organizers of a May 2003 bombing that attacked a Riyadh residential complex that mainly housed foreigners. Prisons have also become a worry for security services trying to root out radicals. John MacLaughlan, the director of Canada's Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre, said in a recent interview that the "captive audience" in prisons provides fertile ground for recruiters because of inmates' sense of "wanting to belong to something that is bigger." A CSIS report on the issue discusses the phenomenon in the United States and Europe, citing the example of the so-called "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who converted to "radical Islam" while in a youth detention facility. A section in the report, entitled Radical Islam in Canadian Prisons, was censored before being released to the Star. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #7 However, CSIS believes fewer than 10 Canadians have gone to fight in Iraq. How many have returned? Really; we keep hearing this "terrorists are training in Iraq" line, but I've never heard of someone coming out of Iraq after their "training". A far more disturbing trend, security officials say, is what is developing inside Canada's borders — citizens who may never have travelled abroad but have been motivated to extremism through radical websites and Internet chat rooms. You mean the muzzies you've let sprout in your own country. Guess what? We all got that problem. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-02-11 12:42 |
| #6 Fascinating, Hupomoger Clans9827. And now our OldSpook knows, if he happened to poke his head in today. There are times when "not enough privacy" is a good thing, eh? ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-02-11 20:12 |
| #5 2b, after the performance of MI5 in recent years, I tend to agree. There's no way they can push all the blame onto the politicians - they're both cut from the same cloth. |
| Posted by: Quatermass 2006-02-11 20:01 |
| #4 That's one way to save up for their |
| Posted by: ed 2006-02-11 12:04 |
| #3 An internal 2004 CSIS report entitled Canadian Converts to Radical Islam says such home-grown converts are particularly dangerous because of their familiarity with Western society. No kidding. In Canada, terrorists carry an Air Miles card. Supporting evidence for tracking Hassan Almrei’s movements in 2001 was gleaned from the Air Miles he earned by gassing up at Shell – a sponsor in the reward program. Hassan faithfully gassed up at Shell on the way up to Sudbury for each of his three trips in the spring of 2001. A Sudbury cell was arrested. Hassan’s last earned Air Mile on record was in Windsor – at the border – on September 10, 2001. He never used the card again. Hassan languishes still in Metro West detention (but with shoes now ) as far as I know. And I no longer work with Air Miles. But my little experience with tracking terrorists was a hoot. Nothing says Canadian like an Air Miles card. Knocked CSIS’s sock’s off when the supporting evidence popped up on a search. |
| Posted by: Hupomoger Clans9827 2006-02-11 11:27 |
| #2 no, Quarter - Our intelligence services are not concerned with our saftey. They are only interested in monitoring people. They don't actually want to DO anything to stop bad people. They just watch as they make plans to blow things up and then they watch as they carry out the plots and then they watch some more. They never stop anything. They just watch as the networks grow under their watchful eye. We always thought that they DID something to stop the bad people. But that is just a myth. They do nothing but watch and take notes as people get killed. Like the UN. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-02-11 11:19 |
| #1 "Jim Judd, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told the Toronto Star in an interview last year the spy agency was aware of Canadians who had gone to Iraq to join the insurgency and was concerned about their eventual return to Canada." Well Jim, you could arrest them and then hand them over to your ally the US, hmm-kay? |
| Posted by: Quatermass 2006-02-11 06:02 |