Islamic Radicalization on the Rise in Canada

Child who addressed the Al Quds Day rally with Anti-Zionist hate speech. Photo: Screenshot.

By Abigail R. Esman 
The man who calls himself Abu Muslim sits with his fellow fighters, members of the group Katiba al Muhajireen, and raises his rifle for the camera. He has come to Aleppo to fight, he tells the man who has come to interview him for Britain’s Channel 4. A Muslim convert, he – like some 100 others joining the jihad in Syria’s civil war – has left his family at home. In Canada.                                                                      The United States’ neighbor to the north is experiencing a radicalization problem, according to a confidential report by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). Made public earlier this year through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Canada’s National Post, the report confirms that “Islamist extremists are now radicalizing Canadians at a large number of venues,” ranging from mosques to dinner parties and even the family home.                                                                                                      
“Parents have radicalized children, husbands have radicalized wives (and some wives have radicalized or supported their husbands,” the study’s authors contend, “and siblings have radicalized each other.”
Indeed, according to one assessment cited by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), “with the exception of the United States, there are more terrorist groups active in Canada today than in any other country in the world.” And while most of their activity is based abroad, a study published earlier this year by the International Institute for Counterterrorism (IIC) shows that 25 individuals have developed or been involved in four plots against Canadian targets since 2006. Of these, eight were Canadian born; three were converts to Islam; and 20 – nearly all – were between the ages of 18 and 35. Most were affiliated with al-Qaeda. Among them:

• The “Toronto 18,” arrested in 2006 for plans to behead Canada’s prime minister, along with a host of other schemes, including bombing the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service office in Toronto, and other targets;
• A group of three Muslims, Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh, Misbahuddin Ahmed, and Khurram Syed Sher – a physician and former “Canadian Idol” contestant – accused in 2010 of plotting terrorist attacks and making bombs;
• Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser, arrested earlier this year on charges they were planning to bomb an Amtrak/Via passenger train running between New York and Toronto;
• John Nuttail and Amanda Korody, converts charged with planning to celebrate Canada Day (July 1) this year by using pressure cooker bombs to blow up the British Columbia Provincial legislature in Victoria.

This does not include the hundreds more suspected of taking part in terrorist attacks abroad, including at least 100 of Canada’s jihadists who, like Abu Muslim, have headed off to join the fighting in Syria. (Abu Muslim is now suspected to have taken part in an attack on an Abu Duhur military airport this past summer.) Notably, while the Muslim population of Canada is smaller than that of the U.S., more Canadian than American Muslims are thought to have joined radical groups in the Syrian conflict.
But it isn’t just in Syria: Canadian radicals have also been involved in attacks elsewhere: the suicide bombing of a courthouse in Mogodishu; the bombing, by members of Hezbollah, of a bus in Bulgaria carrying a group of Israeli tourists; and the attack on a gas plant in January, which killed hundreds of refinery workers in Algeria...Continue reading...