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U.S. News & World Report
Trouble to the
North
Recent attacks in Canada highlight the problem of homegrown extremism.
By Michael P. Noonan
Oct. 25, 2014
This week’s events in Quebec and Ottawa point to a potentially
troubling trend in the radicalization of violent extremists. The
perpetrators of the deadly attacks – Martin “Ahmad” Couture Rouleau in
Quebec and Michael Zehaf-Bibeau in Ottawa – were both converts to Islam
with troubled, criminal pasts. (As Humera Khan of Muflehun told Gwen
Ifill on the Aug. 27 broadcast of "PBS NewsHour," troubled converts
sometimes believe that by conducting such acts with their usually
superficial interpretations of Islam that they can earn “shortcuts to
heaven.”) But this isn’t a simply a problem of some lone converts.
Canada, like many countries in the West, has a problem with a very
small, but dangerous population of violent extremists. Sharon Cardash
of George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute
notes that there have been numerous disrupted plots for attacks in
Canada over the past decade.
The Canadian government has begun revoking the passports of those
already fighting overseas (foreign fighters) and those attempting to
join the fight. Zehaf-Bibeau had applied for a passport seemingly to go
and fight in Syria, but his name had recently been added to a list of
so-called “high-risk" travelers. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are
investigating 93 such individuals who they suspect may try to go and
fight in Syria or other locations. It is unclear whether he had
connections to a wider physical network of extremists, but U.S.
counterterrorism officials linked him with the Canadian foreign fighter
Hasibullah Yusufzai through social media. Rouleau, for his part, had
had his passport seized at the airport when he tried to fly to Turkey
to go and fight in Syria and was detained for questioning before he was
later released.
Canada’s population of 35.16 million is a bit more than a tenth of that
of the United States, but it has produced as many – or potentially more
– militants going to fight in Syria and other locations as the United
States. Muslims make up 3.2 percent of the Canadian population versus
approximately .5 percent of the U.S. population. (Reports suggest that
80 foreign fighters have returned to Canada. Although hopefully many of
them have grown disillusioned with the causes that led them down that
path.) This in no way means to suggest that Islam is the problem, but
rather that Canada as with other countries in the West has a small but
active network of individuals who are radicalizing people to become
violent extremists.
This week’s attacks followed a ramping up of Canadian support in the
war on the Islamic State group. Canada has recently dispatched six CF18
aircraft to take part in combat operations in Iraq against the Islamic
State group and is sending 69 special operations forces advisers there,
too. And just this week Islamic State group spokesman Abu Muhammad
al-Adnani called for Muslims in the West to carry out attacks. “If you
can kill a disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful
and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other
disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of
the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State …
kill him in any manner or way however it may be,” he said.
But this is not the first call for attacks against Canada. A Canadian
foreign fighter in Syria, Farah Shirdon, told the Hamilton Spectator
through a mobile phone messenger account that “The only thing I have to
say to any reporter is tell [the Canadian government] its civilians
will pay the price the war your government is waging against the
Islamic state." He continued by saying that, "You are waging a war
against people who see heaven in the barrel of guns. Do you honestly
think you can win? ... The streets of Western cities will be filled
with blood." (He has also threatened that Canada and the United States
will be attacked after Syria and Iraq are won.)
For the rest of this article and more, go to U.S. News & World Report
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