Appeal of a Toxic Ideology

"If he was here up until very recently, who was he in touch with?"
"There's a lot of gumshoe work that has to be done. Once you identify somebody, that's just the start of the story."
"From a counter-terrorism perspective it would be very useful to have a better understanding of the role of some Canadians in these situations."
Ray Boisvert, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer

It is now officially confirmed -- if there was indeed any doubt after Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal had informed reporters in January in the aftermath of the hostage crisis at the In Amenas gas facility in Algeria -- that a Canadian he identified as "Chedad" had co-ordinated the deadly assault and four-day stand-off where American, British, French, Norwegian, Japanese Filipino, Romanian and Algerian workers were killed.

The attack, planned well in advance of the event itself, and likely from Libya, coincided with the French incursion into Mali, to interrupt the ongoing seizure of Malian towns in remote areas of the country to secure a stronghold for Islamist militias aligned with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.  The well-organized and -armed militia, calling themselves The Masked Brigade, represented Mokhtar Belmokhtar, held to be more of a plain criminal than a purely fanatical Islamist.

Hundreds of workers were held hostage by the approximately three dozen armed Islamists. All but three, who escaped, were shot dead by Algerian troops when the stand-off was ended. According to a plant employee, ringleader Mohamed Lamine Bencheneb had boasted to the hostages during the siege, "Look at this man and how Islam has reached Canada". It was reported by Le Monde that a Canadian of Chechen origin had been involved.

The RCMP, which had dispatched a few of its investigators to Algeria shortly after the January siege in an effort to discover details that would definitively link a Canadian, and perhaps two, with the attack, has now issued the statement: "The RCMP confirms that Canadian human remains have been identified in Algeria. As this is an ongoing investigation no further information will be given at this time", announced Corporal Laurence Trottier.

This is only the latest Canadian -- or Canadians -- to have been known to have died during terrorism activities overseas. A Toronto college student was known to have been shot dead, fighting with Islamists in the Dagestan region of Russia. Others have participated, in their willing response to radicalism, in terrorist groups in Somalia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and they have died there, in the name of Islamist supremacy.

A Canadian intelligence report of last April spoke of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb representing one of the top global terrorist threats. They have been recipients of millions raised through governments redeeming their nationals taken as hostages. With that funding they have bought weapons, allowing them to expand their influence and their outreach throughout North Africa and abroad.

CSIS holds the spread of the violently Islamist dogma as a response to the Internet-sponsored image of Islamophobia, entreating the faithful, the young, the resentful, the adventurous, and the glory-seekers to join them in their mutual cause. Family members who encourage their youth to become involved and enlist to bring honour to their family name, and the radical ideologues who visit mosques and community centres to enlist new members are all represented as incentivizing young Muslim men to the call of jihad.