Apprehending Jihad

More Islamophobia. What else can one expect from the hysterical West, after all, seeing jihadis lurking everywhere, even around train underpasses or around water purification systems. As though busy professional Muslims studying engineering at Canadian universities have nothing better to do with themselves than plot mass murder in a country that has invited them to study at their institutes of higher learning.

Take Chiheb Esseghaier, a 31-year-old talented medical-science engineer from Tunisia studying for his doctorate with a research arm of the Universite du Quebec. Arrested along with his co-accused Raed Jaser from Toronto, on charges of plotting to conspire in a terrorist attack to target train commuters between New York and Toronto, Mr. Esseghaier spurns Canadian law, deeming it subordinate to the divine law of the Koran.

A Via Rail passenger train pulls into Dorval Station in Montreal. Two men have been charged with a plot to derail a train in Toronto. Photograph: Shaun Best/Reuters

 

He is prepared to defend himself in a court of law when he faces trial in Toronto early in 2015. He will use the divine law of the Koran, Sharia law, to prove to a Canadian court that he has done nothing wrong in conspiring to wreak harm on Canadian soil. After all, he contends, the West was doing just that, in Afghanistan. He does not deny the conspiracy considering it quite legitimate for, as he claimed there is "no shortage of reasons" to launch such an attack in North America.

"We have to liberate Muslim lands and support our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan", he said ever so reasonably adding that NATO intervention was "undressing our women". But he is wrong, actually, rather than 'undressing' Afghan women by freeing them from the confines of the chador and the niqab, most Afghan Muslim women outside Kabul and other urban centres opt to wear full-face covering or burkas as do many in urban centres.

Demonstration of Hijab & modesty in Nishapur- July 12 2013 09CC BY-SA 3.0 Sonia Sevilla - Own work

They know the culture in which they live, and what a misogynistic religious society expects of them.
But while Chihab Esseghaier and his co-conspirator Raed Jaser await trial, another of their number, 27-year-old Tunisian Ahmed Sayed Abassi, who lived in Canada attending Universite Laval as a chemical engineering student, on a study visa who met with Mr. Esseghaier in New York to "discuss[ed] his desire to engage in terrorist acts against targets in the United States and other countries", pleaded guilty to immigration fraud in New York.

His plea the first from a cross-border counterterrorism investigation that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police disrupted as an Al-Qaeda-linked plan to effect a mass casualty terrorist attack in Canada. Mr. Abassi did not claim guilt to terrorism, though American prosecutors are aware he had met Chiheb Esseghaier, and "acknowledged that he may have radicalized Esseghaier". If so, he was more than ripe for radicalization.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of falsely claiming travel to the U.S. as being involved in a real estate business, making "False representations" applying for a green card. Offences which carry maximum sentences of five years and one year, respectively. His conviction means he faces up to six years of incarceration, given the acceptance of a plea offer from prosecutors in Manhattan after which he will remove himself back to Tunisia, as part of the agreement.

Both Abassi and Esseghaier spoke of the delight to be gained by them in engaging in poisoning a water system and possibly killing up to 100,000 people. They are engineers, after all, and have the requisite knowledge of how to proceed with such a grotesque, but to them entirely appropriate undertaking. Scruples against such a mass atrocity? They simply make a comparison to what they interpret as occurring in countries of southeast Asia and Middle East.

In Canada, RCMP and FBI officers managed to infiltrate the conspiracy at a relatively early stage. Arresting the two men in Montreal and Toronto, while Abassi was taken into custody the same day in New York. The protection of citizenship is absent with all the men concerned, since none hold citizenship, though all three took advantage of Canadian opportunities to advance their futures. Presumably not in the manner which has resulted.

According to police intelligence Mr. Esseghaier had received "direction and guidance" from Al-Qaeda offshoots based in Iran. Very impressive credentials.