Canada, belatedly, is waking up to the homegrown jihadist threat.
Eight years have elapsed since the “Toronto 18” terror plot in southern Ontario was uncovered by police, yet Canada has only recently begun to treat the problem with the gravity it deserves.
A few days ago, the Canadian government classified Islamic State as a terrorist organization and made support for it an offence under the Criminal Code. Meanwhile, Canadian Immigration Minister Chris Alexander announced that Canadians who travel abroad to fight with terrorist groups, or are stopped in Canada before they can reach jihadist training camps in Syria, will pay a heavy price. Their passports will be invalidated.
Canada should have cracked down harder on local jihadists following the arrest of the 18 young men in 2006. All Muslims and under the sway of Al Qaeda ideology, they had hatched a diabolical scheme to detonate truck bombs, storm the headquarters of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Toronto Stock Exchange, attack the parliament buildings and behead the prime minister.
This unsettling incident should have been a wakeup call to law enforcement authorities and national security agencies that some young Muslim men in Canada have fallen under the baneful influence of radical Islam, which has morphed into a serious international issue since the Arab terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
It’s true that the Canadian government was aware of this ticking time bomb. Last year, for example, the Canadian Revenue Agency revoked the charitable status of an outfit called the Islamic Society of North America Development Foundation over concerns that money raised in Canada had been sent to terrorist entities in Pakistan. But not until this week did the federal government act forcefully and decisively to combat the scourge posed by Canadian jihadists.
By all accounts, dozens of Canadians — Muslims and converts alike — have been drawn into the jihadist orbit and flocked to Syria and Iraq to lay down their lives for Islamic State, one of the most destructive and nihilistic Sunni Muslim bands to emerge in the Arab world in the past century.
At least several Islamic State recruits from Canada have been killed in action in Syria, including Mohamud Mohamed Mohamud, a 20-year-old of Somali background, and Damian Clairmount, who converted to Islam.
Another Canadian jihadist, Farah Shirdon, known as Abu Usamah Somali, was interviewed this week on Vice News. He boasted that Islamic State will not stop its rampage in the Middle East until its eerie black flag flies over the White House in Washington, D.C., and until Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is crucified.
Talk about a medieval mindset!
Canadians are not the only foreigners to have been lured into the ranks of Islamic State. As U.S. President Barack Obama recently told the United Nations Security Council in a special session to discuss the flow of jihadists into Syria and Iraq, about 15,000 foreign fighters from 80 countries have been recruited so far. According to reports, the vast majority of the foreigners hail from Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Tunisia.
In an important development, the Security Council unanimously passed a resolution requiring all nations to adopt laws forbidding their citizens from joining jihadist groups such as Islamic State and the Nusra Front, both of which have been bombed by American aircraft in recent weeks. The binding resolution falls under Chapter 7 of the UN charter and thus can be activated by military force or economic sanctions.
In the meantime, it’s gratifying to learn that European governments intend to pass legislation in accordance with that UN resolution.
Germany’s interior minister, Thomas de Maziere, is examining ways to clamp down on Germans, mostly Muslims, who want to fight in Syria and Iraq. His French and British counterparts, Bernard Cazeneuve and Theresa May, are seeking new powers to confiscate the passports of Islamic radicals who have either joined Islamic State or intend to do so.
In the final analysis, though, the problem should be resolved at the source. What this means, in practice, is that Muslim communities in Canada and elsewhere should assume much more responsibility for ensuring that their youths will neither be brainwashed by wayward imams nor influenced by the poisonous siren call of jihad.
The struggle against Sunni extremism, both in Canada and abroad, is a seminal one that must be won.