Championing Islamic State

"Lone wolves, we salute you. IS is winning more ground and the lone wolves are hitting you in the heart of your lands."
"The real hero for hitting evil Canadian forces on their soil in retaliation for the Canadians supporting the Shiite gangs in Iraq [was Islamic convert Martin Couture-Rouleau who carried out vehicular murder of a Canadian Forces soldier in Quebec]. May Allah accept him."
"A Muslim brother is martyred by the Canadian police after he killed a Canadian Soldier in retaliation to Canada’s crimes in Iraq."
"In response to Harper's [Prime Minister Stephen Harper] policy of no restrictions on Canadian criminal forces in Iraq, Islamic State issues ... an order to lone wolves in Canada with 'no restrictions' on targets ... unlike prior restrictions to government and armed personnel only."
"If you are looking for someone to blame it is your government and elected prime minister."
"This dam [in Revelstoke, B.C.] supplies most of the west coast of the North American continent with power. The number of police officers in this town is between 20-30. Closest military base is 200 kilometres. Security is weak."
"There is a bridge — Nipigon River Bridge near a village Nipigon, Ont. It crosses a river and connects Eastern Canada with its West and it also carries a railroad. This bridge divides the country in the middle and its repair will take years. Security protection … zero."
"Our advice to supporters in the #US … carry your actions there … swiftly lone wolves activate all across #USA."
Othman Hamdan, Fort St. John, British Columbia -- Facebook

Othman Hamdan, on his way into a bail hearing in Fort St. John on July 15, 2016. He has been acquitted on all charges. (Brett Hyde/CBC)

"The word [used in a Facebook post] linguistically means: [the Islamic State] it is here to stay, it is here to remain. … It is a coined slogan specific only to the Islamic State."

"They have a vision, political and religious. The Islamic State wishes to remove Western hegemony, predominantly led by America from the Middle East … and replace them with governments that respect and implement Sharia law."

"[Lone-wolf attacks can refer to] an individual who is residing outside the Islamic State controlled territories around the globe."

"Anywhere outside, could be Canada, could be in the U.S. They are loyal to the Islamic State's cause, they are supportive of their religious or ideological or political motives. And they are willing to conduct operations to further the Islamic State's cause in the region of the Middle East."

RCMP Constable Tarek Mokdad, Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams

Facebook has removed these pages for inappropriate content. Othman Hamdan allegedly posted comments counselling murder and other acts of violence on these Facebook pages. (Facebook)

The trial of this resident of Canada -- who does not hold Canadian citizenship -- began in June of this year, and has only now concluded. Constable Mokdad was recognized by the court as an expert on Islamist-inspired terrorism and lone-wolf attacks. He had been responsible during the investigation of Othman Hamdan, of interpreting the Facebook account used by the man who pleaded not guilty to charges of encouraging the commission of murder, assault and mischief. The charges against this man also included inducing and instructing someone to proceed with an act of terrorism.

Clearly enough this man, now 35, of Palestinian descent who lived for years from 1999 in the United States and whose roommate, a Saudi national, had been taking flying lessons, came to the attention of American intelligence authorities. Attention that Hamdan claimed amounted to discriminatory harassment and which was responsible for leading him to leave the U.S. and travel to Canada where he declared himself a refugee. Amazingly, the Immigration and Refugee board accepted his application as a refugee in 2003, a year following his arrival in Canada.

Born in Abu Dhabi where his Palestinian parents then lived, at the age of 18 he moved to the United States. While there, he converted to Christianity. Evidently that religion failed to serve his faith needs, so he reconverted to Islam. If he lived in Pakistan or Afghanistan as a Sunni Muslim he would doubtless have faced the death penalty for leaving Islam, however temporarily. As an Arab Muslim he had ample opportunity to return to the place of his birth, to live anywhere in the Middle East, to take part in its slow and steady implosion. And he does have Jordanian citizenship.

He chose the world of the West, instead. Where he testified at his trial, that he imbibed in alcohol and made use of recreational soft drugs in the United States, searching for where his soul should reside.
His search obviously led him to respond to the personal appeal that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant held for him, in their carnage-ridden atrocities across Iraq and Syria, calling on him to champion their 'cause' of jihad, and so he did. Acting as a proxy mentor to any Muslims who might find solace in their grief over Western Islamophobia and interference in Arab/Muslim affairs.

His 2015 arrest resulted in the RCMP carefully combing through 85 Facebook posts he was responsible for, between 2014 and 2015 where he posted approving ISIL propaganda, urging Muslims to throw in their lot with the nauseating jihadis. His posts made much of the 'successes' of the jihadi caliphate advances, lauding their pure Islamist tenacity and penchant for barbarically inventive atrocities. Betraying his own obvious enchantment with their modus operandi.


What was obviously concerning to investigators was Hamdan's high praise for the 'lone wolf' attacks that had taken military lives in Quebec and on Parliament Hill. He went the extra mile on his posts to publish a how-to guide for others aspiring to carry out such hugely successful attacks in compliance with Islamic State's urging of Muslims abroad to get involved and prove their credentials as faithful of Islam. In pleading not guilty to all charges brought against him, Hamdan argued his posts were 'taken out of context' and clearly misunderstood as to their intent.

He was, after all, being totally facetious in his professions of admiration for Islamic State, and nor were his urgings to other Muslims to be taken seriously, for that was not their real intent. Rather, he used social media for the express purpose to "shine a light" on the very atrocities that so shocked the civilized world. Those atrocities were not, needless to say, those carried out by Islamic State, for he championed them. They were atrocities being 'carried out in the Middle East' in general, through the presence of the Western military.

His posts? sheer political satire. He was endorsing no one and no group, none at all. What this master of invention was doing was going out of his way to explain why events that were taking place were taking place. From his considerable store of knowledge of such events. His posts were meant by anyone intelligent enough to interpret them as they should have been, to highlight government reacting against citizens holding peaceful protests in the Middle East during the Arab Spring. Dontcha see?

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Butler did see. "These posts are difficult for the average Canadian to read or understand. This is because Mr. Hamdan expresses support for the actions of lone wolf terrorists and the reasons he gives for saluting these actions defy logic. The suggestion that it is rational or acceptable for someone to kill unsuspecting non-combatants in a civil setting is repugnant. However, the posts do not contain statements that could be considered active inducements and encouragement for readers to go and commit similar offences."

Great judicial wisdom, that.

Got that? Justice Butler has acquitted this man of all charges brought against him. Though offensive, to Canadians, it doesn’t mean the Fort St. John man had the intention of encouraging or inciting acts of murder, assault and mischief as 'alleged by the Crown'. He does remain under incarceration, however.

Canada Border Services official Randal Hyland stated that the agency had grounds to believe that Hamdan was inadmissible to remain in Canada as he obviously poses a security risk as well as the nature of his serious criminality. At a detention hearing, Mr. Hyland recommended that Hamdan remain in prison until such time as a full admissibility hearing can be held before the Refugee Board.
For his part, Hamdan will contest any decision to remove him from Canada.