The New Reality: When In Doubt, Arrest

"He was definitely supportive of Shaikh Muhaysini and Jabhat al-Nusra. Very supportive. He was translating Muhaysini's Arabic tweets for his English audience and was deeply involved in theological debates."
"Muhaysini is classic al-Qaeda and did call for more fighters to come to Syria recently -- after the Russians got involved."
"[Kevin Omar Mohamed, known on social media as Abu Jayyid is] Guyanese by background."
Professor Amarnath Amarasingam, researcher in Canadian foreign fighters

"The sincere mujahid [holy warrior] doesn't care whether he is given victory or is martyred, for he came out for one of the two good things, victory or shahada [martyrdom] and he entrusted that to his lord and is pleased with what Allah chooses for him."
Kevin Omar Mohamed, jihad posting

"While there was no indication of any plans for a domestic attack, we must remain committed to preventing individuals from travelling abroad to gain training and expertise that could be used in the planning and implementation of future attacks on Canadian soil."
RCMP Superintendent Lise Crouch, assistant criminal operations officer, Ontario

Handout   Kevin Omar Mohamed, 23.

Western government authorities are clearly rattled. Expressing fanatical views on line was once seen as mildly troubling. Now they're viewed as harbingers of violence unleashed when least expected. They are threats that warn of what is yet to come. The violent, planned and hugely successful jihadist attacks that took Paris and Brussels by surprise, as a result of lax intelligence and the propensity to overlook just such threats have come back to haunt French and Belgian authorities.

Few other countries have a wish to see those attacks mounted on their soil. And all of them have the potential to witness just that type of occurrence, since home-grown jihadis, many of whom have left the countries of their birth to respond to the call inciting jihad, have travelled to places of conflict like Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria to fight Islam's wars, learning battle strategies and bomb-making skills. These experiences accompany them back to their European and North American homes.

In fact, there is little real need to travel since recruitment connections are everywhere; at local madrassas, mosques, social centres, and the Internet. Anti-terrorism police in Canada have been empowered through a Bill C51, a new law enabling security and intelligence to act in a way not previously practised, as a reflection of the viral reality of Islamist jihad, to make arrests founded on the belief that to do so will interrupt plans to mount attacks in Canada.

Kevin Omar Mohamed, 23, has written on line that Muslims who engage in conflict on behalf of Allah represent "the highest". The "terroristic organization USA" viewed by him as an adversary of Islam. Wondering why jihadi songs were viewed by non-Muslim governments as unacceptable "if songs glorifying rape/drug dealing/killing people/joining gangs is acceptable online". The distinction that seems to elude him is that those rap glorifications are a figment of social rejection, while the criminal acts of rape, drug dealing, killing people, joining jihad/gangs is the reality of psychopathic Islamism.

In an ironic twist, Mohamed had posted his opinion about Aaron Driver also known as Harun Abdurahman an ISIL advocate arrested in Winnipeg in the fear he "may" engage in terrorism, as profoundly unfair. "Harun Abdurahman is why people in Canada should oppose BC51. How can  you do this to people based on a hunch they might engage in terrorism", he queried in his post.

Now Mohamed can puzzle that one out to his heart's content, nursing a more personal grievance as penalty for taking "freedom of speech" to its ultimate line of demarcation between speaking one's mind and invoking divine authority to incite to violence. His trip to Syria in the spring of 2014 doubtless equipped the young man with the devoted expression of martyrdom-obligation.

The close scrutiny to which he has been subjected has been well earned.