Jihad: From Lethal Violence to Stealth Persuasion

"The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process' with all the word means."

"The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating the destroying the western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

"It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny." 

An Explanatory Memorandum for the Muslim Brotherhood's Goals in North America  

Jihad: Holy or Unholy War?
John L. Esposito
The concept and practice of jihad have been critical in the history of
Islam.1 From the rise of Islam and the creation and expansion of the Muslim
community, jihad has played a central role in Islam. Jihad (exertion or struggle)
is sometimes referred to as the Sixth Pillar of Islam. Throughout history, (as in
other faiths) sacred scripture has been used and abused, interpreted and
misinterpreted, to justify resistance and liberation struggles, extremism and
terrorism, holy and unholy wars.
The importance of jihad is rooted in the Quran’s command to struggle (the
literal meaning of the word jihad) in the path of God and in the example of the
Prophet Muhammad and his early Companions. In its most general meaning,
jihad refers to the obligation incumbent on all Muslims, individuals and the
community, to follow and realize God’s will: to lead a virtuous life and to extend
the Islamic community through preaching, education, example, writing, etc.
Jihad also includes the right, indeed the obligation, to defend Islam and the
community from aggression. Throughout history, the call to jihad has rallied
Muslims to the defense of Islam.
Since the late 20th century, the word jihad has gained remarkable
currency: used by resistance, liberation, and terrorist movements alike to
legitimate their cause and motivate their followers. The Afghan Mujahiddin, the
Taliban and the Northern Alliance, have waged a jihad in Afghanistan against
foreign powers and among themselves; Muslims in Kashmir, Chechnya,
Daghestan and the southern Philippines, Bosnia and Kosovo have fashioned
their struggles as jihads; Hizbollah, HAMAS, and Islamic Jihad Palestine have
characterized war with Israel as a jihad; Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group has
engaged in a jihad of terror against the government there and Osama Bin Laden
and al-Qaeda have waged a global jihad against Muslim governments and the West.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the century-old Egypt-based totalitarian, political, exterminationist leader in Islamist conquest for the universal elevation of Islam and the subjugation of all people on the globe -- to submit to a religion conceived by an Arab businessman in the 7th century Mecca of the Middle East who diligently mined the prophets, holy concepts, and sacred human values of the Hebrew Holy Book to freely lift those precepts and philosophical, historical antecedents to be used in the conceiving of Muhammad's own rendition of a holy scripture, the Koran, which he held to supercede those of two predecessor religions; Judaism and Christianity, as God's 'final word' -- must be recognized for the danger it is.

 

 

Since that inception in 1928 the Muslim Brotherhood has spread its tentacles throughout the world, with countless branches, both those dedicated to violent action -- in the Middle East, Africa and Asia -- and stealth persuasion -- in Western democracies; throughout Europe and the Americas, to use any and all methods between the two extremes to achieve the goal of Islamist domination. Recognizing its threat to their own status as governments, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood. It is past time for the West to catch up.

 

Moderate Muslim-majority countries are under attack by the Muslim Brotherhood's offshoots, just as Western countries are; the methodology differs, as do the techniques, but the end result is the same. Convert or die. Alternately, convert or live under Islam as taxed-and-tolerated inferiors. 

Islam is  now the fastest-growing religion on the globe, likely to overtake Christianity within the next several decades. Where Christianity sees slumping followings, Islam's is expanding. And as it expands it also exports itself everywhere across the world.

 

Through immigration, migration, and refugee claimants, Islam is infiltrating everywhere. Muslims have a tendency to obey Koranic instructions to hold themselves separate from those of other, or no religious affiliations. And since Islam is an entire way of life, subscribed by the strict tenets laid down for Muslims through their holy scriptures, there is no assimilation within another culture, their values, acceptance of a different history, and above all, laws, other than Sharia.

 

Observant Muslims heed their obligation to procreation. Through the scimitar, the Koran and the cradle, Islam grows its ummah unrelentingly, the global presence of Muslims, either in Muslim-majority countries or through the limitless diaspora. And wherever Muslims congregate to become part and apart of an established presence in non-Muslim countries they agitate for Sharia law, arguing that their numbers reaching majority status demands it. 

 

Oddly enough, for a strictly religious people, the incidence of crime among the Muslim population tends to be higher than for other groups. Illegal and criminal activities from human smuggling to trafficking in arms and prohibited substances such as recreational drugs go a long way to funding Islamist terrorism. Tellingly, Islamist groups have become proficient in their use of Western social and cultural concepts of fairness and equality, professing allegiance with social groups they have nothing in common with, and have no regard for, but to use them as helpful supports.

 

Appealing to the human rights due them, Islamists use the guise of victimhood to persuade social progressives abroad that they disproportionately suffer discrimination because of their religion, because of their culture and inherent beliefs, because of their skin colour, because their history is unappreciated, despite that Islam is a religion of peace. That criticism of Islam merely as a result of its proclivity to produce hordes of terrorists plaguing the world community in a violently constant replay of its founder's militancy of persuasion is 'Islamophobic', shaming the timid and the unaware to silence.

 

As the engine of Islamist totalitarianism the Muslim Brotherhood which has succeeded in inserting itself as an honourable representative of Islam throughout the West, with its machinations of its offshoots like    CAIR and its countless 'humanitarian charities' that purport to support the poor and the undertrodden in developing nations while siphoning the funds toward terrorism, it requires governments throughout the world to finally recognize its role in destroying what the Western world represents as democratic unions supporting human rights.

 

 

Sudan in Extremis

"[The] DNA of the conflict in Darfur of 20 years ago is still present in the fighting today, but this war is more ferocious."

"The atrocities that were committed in this war, it is unlike anything that Sudan has seen before."

"[The RSF has been] systematically destroying civilian dwellings [in areas that have a significant population of Zaghawa, an ethnic minority in Darfur]."

"This represents the first specific evidence of potentially ethnically motivated alleged targeting inside El Fasher by RSF."

"I’m sure Sudan will come out of this. I just hope that these dark days will be short, this war will end soon, and that the world will help us."

Omer Ismail, acting foreign minister, Sudan’s transitional government before the military coup

The year-long civil war in Sudan has been overshadowed by the conflict in Gaza and the war in Ukraine. | Photo Credit: Joao Daniel Pereira/Atlantico/ZUMA/picture alliance

"I’ve been really grappling with this question basically since I started working on Sudan issues in 1997."

"Like so many things in life, the answer is a mix of things. One factor is the complexity of the situation, where neither side is obviously 'good or evil'. [Another may be a deeply ingrained, potentially even subconscious, racism or Eurocentrism where outsiders incorrectly perceive the fighting as somehow 'uncivilized' or 'typical'."

Roman Deckert, Geneva-based independent expert on Sudan

 

Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan cheers with soldiers in Khartoum last month. Sudan's Armed Forces via AFP - Getty Images

The current war in Sudan began with a disagreement between the country's army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan, leader of the Rapid Support Forces -- formerly the Janjaweed, armed Islamist horsemen involved with the massacre of non-Arab Darfurian farmers during the previous government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, condemned by the International Court of Justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity -- in a power play. Since the initial phase of the conflict, other armed forces backing the Sudanese military have joined the conflict.

 

Now, corpses lie in the streets, and much of Khartoum, the capital, has become a rubble graveyard. Hospitals and homes have been smashed to rubble by artillery shells that soar over the Nile River. Death is so much a part of people's lives now that residents hesitate to venture too far from home -- even where security is scarce there too -- leading them to bury their dead outside the front doors of their homes. 

 

One of the largest cities in Africa, Khartoum is now reduced to a battleground as two generals' fight for power brought the nation to civil war, and Khartoum became ground zero for a humanitarian catastrophe. An estimated 150,000 people have been killed in the space of a year. Nine million people fled their homes, comprising the globe's largest displacement crisis, (rivalling that of Syria), according to the United Nations. Officials warn an oncoming famine could kill hundreds of thousands of children in coming months.

 

Foreign countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Russia all play a role in the chaos in a volatile mix of outside interests providing endless weapons or fighters to the conflict that began in April of 2023 with a standoff between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces when gunfire burst on the streets of the Sudanese capital. Rivals, they ruled together after seizing power in 2021 before falling out over military merging.

 

The conflict appears stale-mated with the war metastasizing into a free-for-all that has devastated the country, with another genocide threatening Darfur after the war crimes committed two decades earlier. Disparate armed groups have entered the conflict even as the Sudanese state collapses, threatening the stability of a fragile region. Expert onlookers feel it to be a matter of time before Chad, Eritrea or South Sudan, as neighbours of Sudan, become involuntarily involved.

 

Sudanese refugees at their makeshift shelters at a relocation camp near Adre, Chad. Over 600,000 new refugees have crossed the border from Darfur into Chad. Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

Khartoum state's nine million residents have seen half flee the conflict. Most of the capital's bank branches have been looted, thousands of vehicles have been stolen as street-by-street looting becomes commonplace, mostly committed by the R.S.F. Few hospitals are now operating; in them starving infants approach death. Famine is underway in parts of Darfur and Khartoum with over 220,000 children expected to perish in coming months in a conflict where both sides use hunger as a weapon.

 

While Rapid Support Force fighters loot aid trucks and warehouses, the Sudanese army withholds visas, travel permits and permission to cross front lines. "One of the most horrific situations on Earth is on a trajectory to get far, far worse", commented the U.S. envoy for Sudan. Since the fall, rebels from Darfur, ethnic militias, Islamists and thousands of women and men have been recruited to join the military.

 

While the United Arab Emirates is supplying weaponry to the R.S.F. in anticipation of building a port on the Red Sea, Egypt has backed the military. The army has turned to Iran for a supply of drones and other weapons. Russia too is involved, offering assistance to both sides. Wagner mercenaries last year supplied the R.S.F. with antiaircraft missiles. Russians trained fighters to shoot down Sudanese warplanes. More latterly Sudan prepared to allow Russian naval access to its ports in exchange for arms and ammunition.

 

International concerns are that the war could spill beyond Sudan's borders, risking sucking in Ethiopia, the second-most populous country in Africa which Sudanese officials accuse of backing the R.S.F. Ethiopia's traditional foe, Eritrea, sides with the Sudanese military. "It's sheer madness. The people of Sudan demand it [a United Nations peacekeeping force]. Enough is enough", former economy minister Ibrahim Elbadawi, protested from Cairo.

 

Fighters of the Sudan Liberation Movement, which supports army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in the southeastern Al Qadarif state in March. AFP via Getty Images

UNHCR Holds the West Hostage to Islamist Terror

The Ramstein military base in Germany has become a makeshift camp for thousands of Afghans  Getty Images

"They [Afghan civilians] really feel like the international community has not stood sufficiently with them."

"There can be all kinds of reasons for people to need to leave [Afghanistan]. But we're trying to assist them where they are."

"We're present in every province and two-thirds of the districts and have a number of partners with which we're working."

"So, we would obviously call on the neighbours to allow those people to be able to seek safety within their countries as well."

Kelly Clements, deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees 

A woman and child walk between the makeshift tents in Nawabad Farabi-ha camp for internally displaced people in Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan.   UNHCR/Edris Lufti

 

The international community is being chided once again by a representative of the United Nations from an arm concerning itself with the plight of the world's burgeoning refugee populations fleeing conflict, repression, discrimination and outright violent hostility from the executive bodies that govern various corrupt, autocratic, crime-ridden countries. Including the latest to join a long string of persecuted people anxious to escape what fate has ordained for them, Afghanistan.

Iran and Pakistan require the sympathy of the world for their hard luck in bordering Afghanistan. Destinations of desperation for Afghan citizens anxious to escape the notorious and dangerous maladministration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. For many, the loss of their fledgling democratic status, despite endemic corruption, was far preferable to the hardline Islamists who have restored their previous rule through unrelentingly lethal attacks on government, its agents and agencies.

In its previous iteration the Taliban gave haven to al-Qaeda, allowing it the freedom of operation to plot a spectacularly atrocious series of surprise attacks on the United States of America. A hideous attack that spurred the invasion of Afghanistan and the hunting down of al-Qaeda and its Taliban supporters. Even then, the sponsors, trainers, enablers and funders of the Taliban gained the trust of the United States accepting Pakistan's claims that it was a committed partner in combating terrorism.

Sheltering both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, Pakistan's Interagency Intelligence group conspired to destroy Afghanistan, even while Washington was generously handing over millions to support the very military that housed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad in spitting distance from an elite Pakistan military academy. Both Iran and Pakistan celebrated the return of the Taliban to govern Afghanistan. A return which added fire to the smouldering embers of impoverishment in a country where Islamic State, al-Qaeda and the Taliban hunt down their opponents in constant orgies of slaughter.

 

 

Little wonder Afghan civilians are desperate to escape the clutches of the Taliban; tribal/sectarian minorities are targeted by all three terrorist groups. As are former government elites, government workers, and Afghans who found employment as drivers, interpreters, kitchen staff and other positions with the foreign troops stationed with the NATO-U.S.-led mission to fend off the Taliban and help to incubate democracy in yet another Muslim country.

That great global conciliator, the United Nations, extends yet another humanitarian mission to persuade the West of their obligations to those less fortunate who in absolute fact either admire or venomously detest Western values, among whom are those committed to the jihad of destruction and death visited on the unIslamic world of vice and corruption. That obligation first and foremost, is to help fund Iran and Pakistan, to house and feed the new refugees seeking haven there. Which of course, does not diminish the West's obligation to take in more refugees themselves.

The oil-rich countries of the Middle East; Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Iraq for starters have limitless treasuries. Time for Qatar in particular, Saudi Arabia as well, to step forward and fund their brethren in religious devotion. For is it not so under Islam that there is such a responsibility among Muslims to give aid and succor to suffering co-religionists? All the more so that the bulk of the world's refugees -- from the Middle East to Africa -- flee the violent threat of Islamist terrorist groups pledging allegiance to jihad through membership in Islamic State and al-Qaeda and their offshoots...

 

As for the last dangerously chaotic airlifting efforts by Western nations to bring desperate Afghans to safety in the West, tens of thousands managed to escape during a harrowing week of hopes and expectations both realized and dashed. Many managed to reach haven and security in Europe and North America. Many more were left behind, with no time nor space on aircraft to accommodate their hopes and aspirations to separate from their country of birth for promising new lives. Take more, urges the UNHCR. 

 

The failure through militant Islamism to secure futures for Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, in Africa where countries as diverse as Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Somalia and others see ongoing deadly attacks by al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates, creates more bedlam, more refugees, and countries suffering the ravages of war and the inability to feed their populations. Islam has become a tired and sick theology, no longer what the faithful proudly claim it to be, a religion of peace. 

Another Worthily Entitled Canadian Citizen

"I accept the submissions of his representative that this decision, if it is published with his full name, could significantly increase the risk of this racist treatment being exacerbated."
"She [co-worker] said that his posts were mainly in support of the terrorist organizations. Further, when Canadian or American soldiers were killed he would post celebratory and supporting messages. When terrorist plans were thwarted or disrupted he would post empathetic messages. The posts are said to have been frequent."
"[Despite having arrived in Canada well before the NATO military action in Afghanistan, A.B. considered his] painful upbringing as being caused by NATO and U.S. intrusions, be they political, economic or military, into Afghan life."
"[The final investigation concluded he] presented a very low risk to commit an act of violence within or in proximity to a CRA facility."
"The employer reasonably concluded that given the knowledge that terrorist groups were seeking to recruit sympathizers to attack NATO forces at home, the grievor presented a risk of being recruited to provide assistance to terrorist or extremist groups."
"I also accept the employer's submission that to do otherwise, meaning to allow a person of any race, creed, colour, or religion who celebrated and advocated for the death of NATO military personnel and the murder of hostages to occupy a position in the federal public service with open access to personal information about every taxpayer, would create an unacceptable risk to the employer's information and reputation."
Federal Labour Board adjudicator Bryan Gray

A tweet by A.B. that cheered on a plane crash was particularly worrying for investigators, given the Calgary airport location of the Canada Revenue Agency office he worked at.   Gavin Young/Postmedia

The ruling handed down recently on the right of a Canada Revenue Agency 2015 decision to fire an employee who had worked next to the Calgary Airport upheld that decision after reviewing details of the circumstances surrounding the employee's behaviour and obvious hostility to Western democratic values, veering off on his Twitter posts to express virulent hatred of NATO and its member states, expressing unconditional support for Islamist terrorism. The man, identified only by the initials A.B., on Facebook "appeared to glorify the Boston Marathon terror bombing, celebrate the deaths of NATO military personnel, and cheer the downing of aircraft".

The adjudicator decided in favour of maintaining anonymity of the former CRA employee, sympathetic to the man's claims of having suffered religious and ethnic discrimination while living in Canada, anxious to spare him any further discomfort in being targeted for abuse, apparently. A.B. is a practising Muslim who arrived from Pakistan where his family lived after having fled from Afghanistan, as a refugee claimant to Canada in 1999. A.B. had worked for the Canada Revenue Agency all of ten days before being fired from the call centre located on the grounds of Calgary airport.

CRA security had been alerted about A.B.'s sympathies and declarations by a co-worker who had recognized the man from a prior private-sector workplace. In that previous employment, a security concern had arisen which caused the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to launch an investigation. As it happened the co-worker was connected to A.B. on Facebook and was familiar with his postings, focusing on events in his country of birth, Afghanistan. The investigation yielded Twitter posts with A.B. celebrating attacks by terrorists.

"@ny-timesword any harm to US occupier army in #Afghanistan is a good news. #boston marathon. Hope more of this to follow."
"@piersmorgan Mr. Morgan there's a wonderful news out there Another plane connected to occupation of @Afghanistan crashed. @bostonmarathon."
"@Haqqanigroup is started by me and it refers to one the resistance groups in Afghanistan against the US occupation of the country."
"@BBCBreaking sorry to hear about civilian casualties in eastern #Afghanistan but really happy to see #NATO casualties they deserve it."

In the wake of the investigation, the CRA revoked the "reliability status", of their Islamist employee. How A.B. had been given that basic security clearance to begin with is curious and appears to have been overlooked. Such a clearance requires a five-year background check to ensure the clearance goes to someone without any questionable skeletons in their background closet. Such a check had it been carried out with due diligence would most surely have mitigated against awarding such a "reliability status" clearance.

The consequence of having his security clearance revoked was the loss of the job, leading the man to file five grievances to the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board with the argument that he had been fired unfairly, as an immigrant to Canada, he emphasized, who had experienced racial and religious discrimination. The usual victim card that is whipped out by these Islamist fundamentalists who know their 'rights' and 'entitlements' are inextricably linked with 'equality' and democracy. Familiar with the language, but spurning the ideology. Freedom without obligations.

The board was informed by A.B. of the difficult life that fate had thrown at him, growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan, his family fleeing to a Pakistani refugee camp where they lived until emigrating to Canada. It was difficult, A.B. moaned to the board "wearing a long beard and being the only brown-skinned person in the office of the business he worked for". "As he said", noted the adjudicator, "that Afghans believe all such good government jobs are reserved for Caucasians", perhaps overlooking that an Afghan refugee, Maryam Monsef, is part of the Trudeau Cabinet.

"I think Canadians and indeed people around the world know exactly what I think about those particular comments [President Trump's tweets on four U.S.Congresswomen]. That is not how we do things in Canada."
"A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian."
"The diversity of our country is actually one of our greatest strengths and a source of tremendous resilience and pride for Canadians and we will to continue to defend that."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

(Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Terrorism Writ Large: Islam/Jihad

"I think that [Norwegian Anders] Breivik was a turning point, because he was sort of a proof of concept as to how much an individual actor could accomplish."
"He killed so many people at one time operating by himself, it really set a new bar for what one person can do."
"This is a particularly strong wave [of white supremacism] and I think it's being fueled by a lot of political developments and also by the sort of connective tissue that you get from the Internet that wasn't there before that's really making it easier for groups to be influenced and to coordinate, or not necessarily coordinate but synchronize over large geographical distances."
J.M. Berger, research fellow, Vox-Pol, European academic study of online extremism

"There's a common framing of far-right terrorism or domestic terrorism as being 'terrorism lite' and not as serious."
"It's an interesting question given that far-right attacks can be quite devastating."
Erin Miller, database manager, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland

"We conceive of this problem as being a domestic one. But that's not the case."
"They [supremacists sharing a common ideology] don't see themselves as Americans or Canadians, very much like the Christchurch killer didn't see himself as an Australian; he saw himself as part of a white collective."
"It has never been the case that these people didn't think in a global way. They may have acted in ways that looked domestic but the thinking was always about building an international white movement."
Heidi Beirich, Intelligence Project director, Southern Poverty Law Center, U.S.

The Christchurch killer acted alone but followed a terrifying trend

The identified and studied interconnectedness of the Internet, the ease with which people with particular agendas and fixed ideas of ideological dimensions can find one another, inspire and stir one another, share tips and declarations of hatred of noted groups, and set out to emulate one another's successful hit rates of hated groups is on the rise, it would seem. It would seem thus from the very increase in frequency of white supremacist attacks around the world. And that all too frequently those taken into custody after the commission of particularly gory blood-letting targeting the vulnerable, confess to their inspired contacts with others of their ilk.

White extremist terrorist attacks that took place in Norway, the United States, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom, as an example, appear to have inspired the man who stands accused of killing 50 people in a rampage in March at two Christchurch mosques in New Zealand, according to his online-posted manifesto preceding his hugely successful attack. His killing exploit serves as a particularly notable example of that informal global network of fellow extremists.

Continents are spanned as the incidents and their connectedness highlight the manner in which social media and the Internet have served to facilitate the spread of the ideology of violence through the white extremist message. A school gunman in New Mexico was seen to have corresponded with a gunman who had attacked a mall in Munich; between them eleven people were killed at their disparate geographical locations.

None, however, killed as many people as did Anders Bering Breivik with his bombing and mass shooting in 2011 in Norway, with a death toll of 77. His manifesto with its grievances listing immigration and Islam as dire provocations threatening the stability and future of his homeland has gone on to inspire others in his wake. His massive attacks were seen as a model to be emulated by aspiring hate-mongers.  A white supremacist, Frazier Glenn Miller wrote on a supremacist forum that Breivik had "inspired young Aryan men to action".

He appears to have done that and more for Miller, a prominent white supremacist in the United States who went on to attack a Jewish retirement home and community center, weapons ablaze, in Kansas, where he murdered three people. The Canadian who stormed a Quebec City mosque in 2017 and killed six worshipers had helped to inspire the Christchurch attacker who added his name to other killers whose names he wrote on his weapon. In turn Alexandre Bissonnette, the mosque shooter, had focused on American Dylann Roof who shot to death nine worshipers at a South Carolina black church in 2015.

Close to 350 white extremist terrorism attacks took place in Europe, North America and Australia from the years 2011 through to 2017, according to data from the Global Terrorism Database. The database defines terrorism as the use of violence by a non-state actor to attain a particular social goal. White extremism is a term used to describe white nationalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic ideologies. And which accounted for roughly 8 percent of all attacks around the world, many in the United States.

In the Oceania region, five white extremist attacks took place from 2011 to 2017 in Australia, all attacks on mosques and Islamic centers. The New Zealand attack was carried out by an Australian who claims to have been radicalized while travelling through Europe. The targets take place in Perth, Dresden, Germany, or Pittsburgh on mosques and synagogues, or asylum centers. Those who study white extremists lament the attention focused on Islamic extremism, pointing out it is not the only driver of international terrorism.


However, it's a safe bet that Islamic jihadist attacks, their frequency, ferocity, deadliness and ongoing threats against the West have inspired white nationalists to play back the Islamist game plan. And while any attacks on innocent people -- destroying lives and causing chaos in society -- are grim and soul-destroying, there is little comparison in total effect between those mounted by white extremists as opposed to the dreadful toll taken by the fearsome attacks launched by various Islamist jihadi groups for whom death deliverance is a sacred duty to Islam and to which no one is immune.

Mea Culpa: White and Colour-Guilty. Minimizing Islamist Terrorism

"Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, incels, nativists, and radical anti-globalists who resort to violent acts are a threat to the stability of my country and countries around the world. [Those attacks] need to be at the top of our agenda when we talk about confronting terrorism."
"[White supremacism is] one of the most serious terrorist threats of the current age. [The online spread of hate is] an international problem, and we need to act collectively to address it."
"[Hatred is] increasingly spread through the internet, [in online forums and on social media]. We must be aware of this, and work to stop it. Our work cannot be undertaken in isolation. Each of our countries will of course address this issue in different ways, but we need to recognise that this is ultimately an international problem, and we need to act collectively to address it."
"In the wake of acts of terrorism carried out by Muslim extremists, Western countries often call upon Muslim countries and Muslim leaders to condemn those attacks in the name of their people and their faith. It should follow that, as the foreign minister of a majority white and majority Christian country, I feel a specific and personal responsibility to denounce white supremacist attacks in the same way."
"Each of our countries will, of course, address this issue in different ways, but we need to recognize that this is ultimately an international problem, and we need to act collectively to address it."
"The Internet and social media know no borders and so we must work together to find ways to address online radicalization."
Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canada

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland addresses the United Nations Security Council debate on terrorism on March 28, 2019 in New York City. (Global Affairs Canada/Facebook)

"What our research [shows] is that there is a diversity of threats out there related to violent extremism, and there are many different ideologies that can create this problem."
"There are a number of ideologies where Alberta is disproportionately represented, in terms of the numbers that we're producing."
"The individuals that we're seeing are really on the margins of extremist movements."
John McCoy, executive director, Organization for the Prevention of Violence (OPV)

"[Alberta is home to] both intimate and established networks [tied to al-Qaeda and affiliated groups, and] highly isolated cases that are connected with AQAS networks wholly online."
"Today, the trend is very much towards the latter. As seen in the OPV’s research on hate, there was near unanimity in the belief that things are getting worse, not better, due in part to this global political climate where expression of discrimination, hate and broader ‘us versus them’ narratives are taking hold."

"Respondents were dismayed to see this occurring in Canada, a nation whose identity is in large part constructed on the basis of immigration and multiculturalism."

Extremism and Hate Motivated Violence in Alberta Report, Organization for the Prevention of Violence

The report, titled Extremism and Hate Motivated Violence in Alberta -- one hundred pages listing extremist groups in the province, estimates of membership, and views of violent or potentially violent ideological movements and whether the groups are growing or shrinking in membership and prominence provides a fairly wide view of threat activities with the potential to destabilize the province and perpetrate violence on a wide scale. OPV points out that al-Qaeda, its affiliates and splinter groups — referred to as AQAS in the report — continue to present as a direct threat in Canada despite international counterterrorism efforts.

The report was built painstakingly around interviews with over 170 law enforcement members representing the RCMP, as well as each municipal police service in the province of Alberta. What was established in the report is that Alberta represents the province with a disproportionate share of extremist movements; far-right groups and those travelling abroad to join armed groups such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. An intervention program hoping to guide people away from extremist movements was developed as well by the organization.

Researchers interviewed roughly 120 people from communities where hate and extremism directly affected them. Some fifty service providers specializing in violence and at-risk youth, and 212 "formers"; people previously associated with extremist movements, or their family members, were also extensively interviewed. Mr. McCoy -- the OPV executive director, is also a professor at University of Alberta whose specialty is terrorism studies -- spoke of a major conclusion, that individuals on the edges of extremist groups, those who have been most frequently radicalized through social media, represent the biggest threat to society. 

A video was recently released of Toronto's Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed, after he was captured by Kurdish forces battling ISIS in Syria. (CBC)

According to the report, from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, fundraising, money laundering and promotion and propaganda took place in the province in support of foreign fighters in the Middle East, North Africa and Bosnia. The report estimated that between 30 and 40 people from Alberta travelled abroad to fight for armed groups in the Middle East, North Africa and Bosnia, disproportionate in number to Alberta's population as compared to the rest of Canada and the numbers of jihadis who chose to leave to ally themselves with Islamist terrorist groups overseas.

 From Calgary alone, roughly twenty jihadis travelled to Syria and Iraq; ten of that number sharing an identified connection with a now-shuttered mosque located in downtown Calgary. Shuttered not only due to its reputation as a breeding ground inspiring resentment against the West, but to its purposeful incitement to bring the faithful as recruits to the Islamic sacred duty of jihad, inspiring to the young and the restless, searching to fulfill meaning in their lives as required by their faith.

Given the situation in the Middle East, with the Islamic State Caliphate no longer a physical reality and the understanding that the searing ideology of hatred and martyrdom cannot be extirpated from the minds of dedicated believers as readily as geography can be wrenched from warring usurpers, the concern has turned inward in the realization and acknowledgement that ISIL has groomed its followers to attack anywhere, at any time, using any methods available to make their statement of jihad's resilience.

A Canadian man allegedly fighting for Islamic State was captured in Syria, according to Syrian Democratic Forces. In a video released Sunday he says his name is Mohammad Abdullah Mohammad.Screen grab

As to other worrisome groups of anti-social extremists which the report listed, the estimate is that approximately 150 to 250 Freemen on the Land in Alberta remain active in their perception that government is illegitimate and therefore no taxes need be extracted from them voluntarily to government coffers. The majority are recognized as non-violent though the report points out that ten to 15 Alberta Freemen have "demonstrated a behavioural propensity for violence". Left-wing extremists identified in the report are not seen to have been involved in major violent incidents, nor are they viewed as a "significant threat to public safety".

Moving on to patriot and militia groups motivated "primarily by xenophobia and anti-government views", many members share anti-Islamic sentiments with some engaging in survivalist activities such as "prepping" and firearms training as well as "street patrols", which "primarily target visible minority, newcomer and refugee communities -- Muslims in particular". Yet there is no evidence that groups such as the Three Percenters, Sons/Soldiers of Odin, the Canadian Infidels/Clann, True North Patriots and Northern Guard are violence prone or "would represent a significant threat to public safety or national security".


Which leaves White Supremacy/Associated Ideologies with the report pointing out that the Ku Klux Klan which once had 50 chapters in Alberta 90 years ago has been reduced to a few small, largely rural groups. And that organized white supremacist groups, largely dormant until the late 1980s with a membership of 100 has bloomed since with a number of skinhead, neo-Nazi and "Aryan" groups active latterly in the province; violent years falling between 2008 and 2012 with ten "noteworthy" incidents of assaults on immigrants and visible minorities.

None of these identified groups in the terrorism range or as threats to society have brought bloodshed in any sphere of society remotely comparable to the virulent threat that Islamism's jihad-aligned terrorism has. Yet the government of Canada chooses to wax eloquent and determined to eradicate the unsavoury (to be sure) presence of white supremacists, equating their hateful ideology with that of the murderous mass-death-delivering psychosis of religious divine edicts to the faithful in Islam to go out and slaughter the infidels.

Forewarned, Unprepared, Stricken

"The reality is that inevitably this group has links outside. My assessment is that the motivation, the masterminds, are outside the country."
"I think their aim is global, it's not in Sri Lanka. Wherever they can get a soft spot they hit because they need recruits all the time and the only way that they can get recruits is by doing these kinds of spectacular activities."
"This is essentially a recruiting tool for them."
Madhav Nalapat, professor of geopolitics, Manipal University, India

"These attacks appear to be quite different and look as if they came right out of the [ISIL], al-Qaeda, global militant jihadi playbook, as these are attacks fomenting religious hatred by attacking multiple churches on a  high religious holiday."
"It is not about a separatist movement. It is about religion and punishing."
Anne Speckhard, director, International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism

"Given the gradual but steady growth of radicalization in Sri Lanka and more importantly the emergence of the Islamic State in Sri Lanka, this could pose a serious threat to the security of Sri Lanka."
"Continued marginalization of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka has produced a conducive environment for extremist elements to breed. These extremist elements could exploit the fault lines within the Muslim community and use the situation akin to how the Rohingya crISIL in Myanmar was used to foment and create extremist groups elsewhere in the region."
"This situation could ideally present the jihadist groups such as the Islamic State with a window of opportunity to plant their footprint in the Sri Lankan soil."
Geopolitical Monitor

Dead bodies of victims lie inside St. Sebastian's Church damaged in blast in Negombo, north of Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Sunday. (Chamila Karunarathne/Associated Press)

There it is in bold letters, former ISIL fighters returning to their  home countries intent on setting up regional terror hubs, a preoccupied concern of Europe and North America come to roost, its first showing since the destruction, but not complete demoralization of Islamic State, to turn to alternate means of evidencing its malign existence and its higher purpose, to slowly and steadily infiltrate and wreak destabilizing chaos through terror and slaughter, leaving the impression on vulnerable populations that they will never know where and when the next strike will appear....

The National Thowheeth Jamaath, a local Sri Lankan Muslim extremist group was a powder keg only needing the spark to set it in motion to create a devastating blow against government disinterest and inaction, its attention diverted by other pressing problems of political upheaval, separatist determination and violent terrorism by Tamil Tigers. The irony here is that the Tamil Tigers were credited with being the first such group to invent suicide bombing. An effective tactic of terror and mass slaughter enthusiastically embraced by jihadists.

The Tamil Tigers are a spent force in the wake of the destructive civil war and its ignominious defeat at the cost of untold numbers of Sri Lankan lives. Yet the Sri Lankan government and intelligence focus remained fixed on the Tigers, overlooking the more viral promise of Islamist jihadists revelling in their reawakening to the joys of Islamic martyrdom in service to the Koran's injunctions to the faithful. Friday mosque prayers are not complete without the customary jog to Muslim sensibilities of the sacred principle of jihad.



Out of Indian intelligence came a warning to Sri Lanka of imminent attacks, eliciting slightly more than a shrug, but not much more. And then came a whirlwind of action out of Muslim-majority Kattankudy in eastern Sri Lanka, reflecting detailed planning leading to a surprise multi-pronged assault where Christians and Westerners were both the message and the targets. In the aftermath, the realization that Thowheeth Jamaath aligned itself with global terrorism; ISIL or al-Qaeda on the Indian subcontinent (AQIS).

It was predicted. Analysts spoke of the "localization" of terrorism, reminiscent of Islamic State grooming its recruits to remain where they are, and to attack there,  using whatever means available. Small, local groups and individuals inspired by the magnificent exploits of those affiliated with global jihadi networks. And thus was outlined the future of Asia. Of Europe. Of North America. In this instance, with the Christian Sri Lankan churches and Western-style hotels targeted and the deaths of over three hundred innocents, the wounding of over five hundred, the message was sent, and received.

"The Bloody days in your church has begun", was the message alongside videos of the Sri Lankan bombings from an Indonesian Instagram account supporting Islamic State, reported SITE.

A Sri Lankan police commando enters a house suspected to be a hideout of militants following a shoot out in Colombo, Sri Lanka on Sunday. Thirteen people were arrested and three officers were killed during raids in search of suspects following the attacks. (Eranga Jayawardena/Associated Press)

Defying Islamist Control : Saudi Women Activists

"She wanted to go back and kind of pay back to the women in Saudi Arabia because she had been able to come to Canada, travel, live abroad, gain a new understanding of the world."
"I've kind of been ... in awe."
"She's been charged on a bunch of, in our opinion, bogus charges. And we're obviously getting more and more worried."
Urooba Jamal, freelance journalist, British Columbia

Vancouver-based friends of UBC graduate Loujain al-Hathloul held a photo shoot last fall to show their support for her and other detained women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia. Pictured in the foreground from left to right are Ayendri Ishani Riddell, Narissa Diwan and Rauza Khan. In the back are Urooba Jamal and Atiya Jaffar. Doaa Jamal

"We know that some of the women [activists] were charged with promoting women's rights and calling for the end of the male guardianship system."
"The women were also charged with contacting international organizations, foreign media and other activists, including their contact with Amnesty International."
Jacqueline Hansen, spokeswoman, Amnesty International Canada

"Loujain told us she has been beaten, electrocuted and sexually harassed."
"During a recent visit, we learned from Loujain that her captors had taken her to a psychologist to help her recover from torture she had endured. But she fainted from the trauma of reliving her experiences."
"On her second visit to the psychologist she says she was blindfolded and duct taped to a wheelchair."
Walid al-Hathloul, Toronto, brother 

"Even today, I am torn about writing about Loujain, scared that speaking about her ordeal might harm her."
"But these long months and absence of hope have only increased my desperation to see the travel bans on my parents, who are in Saudi Arabia, revoked and to see my brave sister freed."
Alia al-Hathloul, sister

"We are concerned by the detention of women rights activists, including Loujain al-Hathloul."
"Canada remains committed to advocating for the detained activists in their struggle for gender equality and human rights. We have raised this situation with Saudi officials and will continue to do so, alongside our international partners."
"Canada will never hesitate to defend human rights and we believe that this dialogue is critical to international diplomacy."
Global Affairs Canada

Rights campaigner Loujain al-Hathloul is on trial for unspecified charges in Riyadh. Photograph: Reuters

Saudi national Loujain al-Hathloul was permitted to leave Saudi Arabia to attend university in Canada, at the University of British Columbia, where she studied several years ago and made fast friends with other foreign students. Urooba Jamal, who became her friend, was an executive of the Pakistani Students' Association at the university and Loujain al-Hathloul had become active in the group, one year helping to organize relief efforts when Pakistan was struggling with dreadful flooding conditions.

Loujain al-Hathloul (centre, next to the woman in the pink hijab) is pictured with other members of the UBC Pakistani Students’ Association in 2012. She graduated from UBC in 2014. Hiba Rajpar

After graduating in 2014, al-Hathloul returned to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and quickly made headlines after she videotaped herself defying the country's ban on women drivers, which resulted in imprisonment for 70 days. A year later, she was among the first women in Saudi Arabia to run for elected office in municipal elections, the only level of government newly-open to women to compete in.

Screen capture from a Nov. 30 2014 video made by Loujain al-Hathloul as she drove towards the Saudi border from the United Arab Emirates. AP Photo/Loujain al-Hathloul, File

However, things have not gone well for al-Hathloul, 28. Since early 2018 she has been in detention together with a number of other Saudi women's rights activists cast as "traitors" in Saudi media. Friends, family and human rights groups are demanding that Western nations make more of an effort to persuade Saudi authorities to release the women as they prepare for a hearing in criminal court today. On March 13 al-Hathloul and another ten women appeared for their first court hearing in Riyadh.

Demonstrators from Amnesty protest outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Paris to release the jailed female activists. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters

None of the women were given access to legal representation, leading human rights groups to call for international monitors to enter the country in the wake of accusations that Saudi interrogators have tortured some of the women, denied by Saudi officials. Held incommunicado, al-Hathloul was finally permitted a visit from her family. Al-Hathloul was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by foreign affairs critic Helene Laverdiere, Member of Parliament, quoted as saying: The Trudeau government needs to "walk the talk"; to halt a $15-billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

On a previous occasion, Saudi Arabia reacted in an unexpectedly ferociously-explosive manner to posts by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland calling for Saudi Arabia to release Samar Badawi, activist sister of imprisoned and flogged Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, along with other women activists, from prison leading the Kingdom to expel Canada's ambassador, suspend trade and investments, and call home thousands of Saudi students studying at Canadian universities.

According to Rex Brynen, professor of political science at McGill University: "There's always the risk that it [public condemnation of Saudi Arabia] has the opposite effect [of that intended]; that is, that Riyadh doubles down on repression to prove it can't and won't be pressured. On the one hand, it might make Global Affairs Canada more cautious. On the other hand, given that Saudi Arabia has already retaliated for past criticism of their human rights record, maybe there isn’t all that much more they can do to us."

International rights groups and governments have called for the activists to be released [File: Benoit Tessier/Reuters]

What's That? Dungeon Them, Throw Away The Key?!!

"No, I don't regret it [enlisting as a conscript with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]. I was asked the same thing by my interrogators, and I told them the same thing."
"He  [Iraqi Abu Muhammad al-Furqan, ISIL media chief] would give me a text, like a script, and I would review it for mistakes, and then we would record. He would then review it and see if there was anything that he would like me to place emphasis on."
"The intention was to not make anyone into a celebrity. I was just the voice."
"I was exhausted. My ammo was gone. They [his eventual captors, the Kurdish militia] kept calling on me to surrender, and so I threw down my weapon."
Mohammed Khalifa, aka Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed

The Flames of War propaganda video was allegedly narrated by Mohammed Khalifa

"He is a symbol -- the voice coming out of ISIL, speaking to the English-speaking world, for the better part of the last four to five years."
"I thought [when first hearing an Islamic State video] this guy sounds like people I grew up with [in Toronto]."
Amarnath Amarasingam, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, University of Waterloo

Captured in Syria a month ago by a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led militia with the Syrian Democratic Forces, the man known as Mohammed Khalifa described his role as a rank-and-file member of the Ministry of Media representing the Islamic State's propaganda arm, responsible for publishing video footage to horrify a Western audience such as the beheading of James Foley and other journalists along with a British aid worker, and placing a Jordanian pilot in a cage, then setting him aflame.

Grinning throughout his interview with a journalist after his surrender following a violent clash between ISIL fighters and members of the SDF, he spoke of his background, as a child immigrating from Saudi Arabia to Toronto, later studying computer systems technology and working for a contracting firm, and finally the decision to leave for Syria after intently watching YouTube battlefield scenes that drew him to the Islamist groups associated with al-Qaeda.

"His voice is the most recognizable English-speaking voice to have ever appeared in Islamic State propaganda", Charlie Winter, senior research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King's College London, stated categorically as though to emphasize just how influential he was in extolling the Islamist virtues of ISIL, cajoling susceptible Muslims in the West to join the fight against the kuffars.

Three audio-forensic experts were invited to compare the anonymous voice on the Flames of War video, the 55-minute long, professionally produced video in which this man's voice narrated a broad presentation of Islamic State's capture of a great swath of Iraq and Syria and in the process dispatched its enemies with a cruel zeal unmatched in modern times, with a more recent televised statement by Khalifa aired in Syria, post-capture. The voice experts were unanimous in their confirmation: It is "134 times more likely that the unknown speaker is Khalifa than someone else" two reported.

Forensic audio specialists, voice recognition expert, all concluded that "the speech tone, pitch, cadence and pronunciation is the same in these examples". Further official confirmation was delivered by a U.S. official identifying Khalifa as the ISIL video narrator. Equipped with a GoPro camera the 55-minute video was shot showed a trench being dug before a killing operation; it became an irresistible draw for recruiting from Australia, Britain and North America, stressed Mr. Winter.

Khalifa was involved in the production of dozens of audio and video clips in the production of the Islamic State's influential English-language propaganda and recruitment tools appealing to those eager to become part of the action. Although merely one among hundreds of Islamic State fighters from some 50 countries now securely locked away in prisons in northern Syria, this man played a pivotal role in recruitment and actively fighting for Islamic State. 

While the men are locked in jails, their wives in the thousands along with their children are held in detention camps, where they may move about freely but not leave. Among them would be Khalifa's caliphate wife and two children whose exact whereabouts are unknown. Canada, like most European nations has been undecided about retrieving their citizens, concerned that evidence of battlefield involvement may be difficult to obtain, making prosecution difficult. How like a democracy, unwilling to let actions, available evidence and reality speak for themselves.

Accordingly, not a whisper of a venture of commitment to reclaim this disgusting representative of humanity has been undertaken, no contact nor visit from Canadian authorities through consular aid and nor has the national police body, the RCMP commented on his detention. Toronto researcher Amarasingam recalled tuning his ears to the speaker's accent in an Islamic State video where the 2015 attacks in Paris were being acclaimed as a brilliant strike for the caliphate.

Muhammed Ali, a captured fighter for the Islamic State who helped identify the English-speaking narrator of some of the group’s films, at an office near the detention facility where he is being held by American-backed militia in northern Syria, Jan. 31, 2019. Ivor Prickett/The New York Times

During a research trip to Syria with Global News journalist Stewart Bell, Amarasingam, given access to a Canadian ISIL fighter captured and imprisoned, Muhammed Ali, further collaboration describing Khalifa under the nom de guerre Abu Ridwan was presented, describing him as a Canadian of African descent by way of Saudi Arabia. Born in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia to parents from Ethiopia his work life as an information technology specialist evidently left something to be desired for excitement and commitment.

He took to listening to online lectures by al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki which convinced him of the need to engage in jihad, but it wasn't until seeing a YouTube video where a group of British fighters speaking English on the Syrian front line gave him the impression that he would not be out of place in Syria, fighting alongside them. He left for Syria in 2013 at the birth of the caliphate,  joining the Muhajireen Ansar Brigade headed by a Georgian militant who later become the Islamic State minister of war.

The brigade he was with pledged allegiance to Islamic State soon afterward at a time when Khalifa claims to have begun working for the media ministry, a critical organ of the Islamic State as an influential recruitment tool. Under the media chief, Abu Muhammad al-Furqan, a close adviser to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, execution videos were to feature a diversity of killers to avoid any one participant becoming too prominent and rising to challenge the leadership.

Khalifa transferred from media voice to fighter when he claimed a Kalashnikov rifle in defence of the embattled Islamic State. The final gunfight he took part in, left him wounded and, he claimed, exhausted. And after six years of commitment and loyalty to the cause of the caliphate he surrendered. Leaving Canada, like its other democratic counterparts whose Muslim citizens had leaked across borders into Syria, to ponder what to do with this legion of human scum.

The English narrator, now identified as a Canadian, Mohammed Khalifa, speaks as Syrians dig what he describes as their graves in the video Flames of War. SITE