Infamously, War Criminals and Islamist Terrorists Find Haven in Canada

"The CBSA [Canadian Border Services Agency], subsequent media reporting, went and obtained an instance of this video from the dark web."

"It's part of the review we're asking ourselves you know, questions about the procedures."

CBSA executive vice-president Ted Gallivan 

"Those decisions were made with the information that [CSIS and CBSA] had available to them at that time. That's why we've asked [Immigration Minister] Mark Miller and I, for them to review a process that may be able to  yield access to certain information in a different way."

"We recognize the understandable questions that Canadians had when they learned following the RCMP news release of these arrests. I think it is reasonable for the government and for Canadians to ask how could this sequence of events ... take place and what can we learn from that sequence of events to ensure the very best measures are in place."

"The fact that these two individuals are in jail and face serious criminal charges reflects the outstanding work done by the RCMP and their partners."

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc

"What happened here is we were within a hair's breadth, minutes, hours, potentially days away of a mass casualty."

"I'm sorry to all the witnesses, you failed in your responsibilities to keep us safe. You didn't do your job. By the grace of God and good French intelligence, they are behind bars where they should be."

"[Canada's intelligence agencies should fire those who] didn't do their job."

Conservative MP Larry Brock

Canada’s public safety minister faced tough questions in Ottawa on Wednesday about how a father and son accused of plotting a Toronto terror attack ended up in the country.

 

Both the Canadian Border Services Agency and Canadian Security and Intelligence Service [CSIS] failed miserably in their function to vet individuals claiming refugee status in Canada, to ensure that they are genuinely entitled to haven in Canada, that there are no outstanding warrants for arrest, nor evidence available that they have criminal or terrorist backgrounds. The recent intelligence received from French agents alerting Canada to an impending attack by Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, who just a month earlier had been granted citizenship, and his son Mostafa Eldidi, resulted in their arrest.

The immigration screening process that is meant to ensure that Canada does not welcome would-be immigrants with unsavoury and worse backgrounds appears to be mired in incompetence. Little wonder that a recent poll concluded that almost half of Canadians oppose the Liberal government's plan to accept up to 5,000 refugees from Gaza who have family members already living in Canada. They are skeptical of the government's claim that such newcomers are screened thoroughly by government officials.

It was investigative journalists with Canadian media who conducting their own investigation discovered an ISIS propaganda video in which Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi featured. Immigration and security failed themselves to uncover the presence of the video that was available on the Dark Web, showing Eldidi engaged in what ISIS loved best to do; shock Westerners with gruesome videos demonstrating live crucifixions, decapitations and other modes of barbaric death-delivery to their enemies, mostly Westerners caught while ISIS was consolidating its geographic Islamist 'Caliphate'.

In this instance it was the morbidly grotesque views of Eldidi dismembering an ISIS prisoner. Investigative reporters took the initiative of visiting the Dark Web with a specific purpose in mind, but presumably seasoned intelligence professionals were too limp-wristed to make their own definitive investigations of discovery of a video produced in 2015. The father-and-son duo was discovered to have been in the advanced stage of plans underway to launch a violent terrorist attack in Toronto. It was only by means of the intelligence alert by France that Canada escaped a potential bloodbath.

A month ago, the RCMP announced nine charges against both men; participation in the activities of a terrorist group and conspiracy to commit murder on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant among them. Eldidi senior was given refugee status in 2018 and three years later became a Canadian citizen. The House of Commons standing committee on public safety and national security voted unanimously to investigate the flawed process enabling the terror-duo to gain entry to Canada.

Either CSIS or CBSA screened Ahmed Eldidi, 62, in 2018, 2021 and 2023 while the son, Mostafa, 26, had been screened in 2020. The screening resulted in "favourable recommendations". According to the IRCC, a temporary resident visa was approved for Ahmed Eldidi in January 2018, who then entered Canada a month later, via Toronto. A year later he was granted permanent residence status in September of 2021. Mostafa Eldidi entered the United States in January 2020 on a student visa, then crossed into Canada at a land border to make an asylum claim, and he was granted refugee status on July 2022.

"Jihadology.net, a U.S. website that catalogues Islamic State communiqués and propaganda, posted what appears to be the video in question on June 16, 2015 — the same day it appeared on an ISIS-affiliated website."

"CBC News has viewed the four-minute video, which features the interrogation of a bearded prisoner wearing an orange jumpsuit. The video shows the prisoner lit by a bright light and sitting in a cell as he answers questions shouted by someone off camera."

"After a section of readings from the Qur'an, the prisoner then appears hoisted on a wooden frame in the desert, bound tightly with load straps. It's unclear from the video whether the prisoner is alive or dead at this point."

"A man dressed all in black, with a cap that features the white Islamic State symbol, then uses a long, square-edged sword to hack at the prisoner's outstretched limbs. The man's red-bearded face is briefly visible as the video cuts from one angle of the attack to another."

CBC News