Canada's Contribution to Global Terror and Attacks on Israel

"It's dangerous for Israel, and it may also be dangerous for Canada."

"It's a wake-up call for the international communities that something is happening here. Within the international context, it's dangerous."

"The most important and prevalent feeling you'll encounter among any Israeli is that we want to have our hostages back. Everybody is looking for this situation to end. Israel wants peace. Israel wants to live in peace with its neighbours."

Iddo Moed, Israeli ambassador to Canada

"While we are relieved that no innocent lives were lost in this attack, we are deeply shocked that a Canadian citizen would travel to Israel and retraumatize the Netiv Ha'asara community, already devastated by the twenty lives stolen in Hamas' murderous rampage on October 7."

"This incident highlights the potential consequences of pervasive misinformation surrounding Israel's conflict with Hamas -- where Israel is demonized and held solely responsible, and where Hamas has been absolved of responsibility for the impact on Palestinian civilians of the war they started."

"When demonstrations glorify terrorists as martyrs and call for global intifada without condemnation from our political leaders, it sets the stage for tragedies like today's attack in the Israeli town of Netiv Ha'asara."

David Cooper, vice-president of government relations, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Security guards confront a charging attacker at the entrance to Netiv HaAsara, an Israeli community near Gaza. Photo by X.com

How could it be otherwise? A growing population of Muslims in Canada, encouraged by order of the government in preferential immigration and refugee intake, among whom there are invariably Islamists who percolate their version of Israel and Zionists as white colonial settlers with no business being in the Middle East, the cradle of Judaism, arguing that only the destruction of the Jewish state, and just coincidentally Jewish lives will do justice to the aspirations of Arab 'Palestinians' for a state of their own on traditional Judean geography.

Second generation Muslim-Canadians, long steeped in narratives of the evils that Jews bring to the world, in particular the Jewish scheme to exile Palestinians from what they claim is their sole territory, the map of Palestine dating back to the Roman era denoting the homeland of Jews, treated by Rome as an occupied provincial holding in their greater domination of the world during that era of Roman military and social might. Viral resentment at the United Nations' Partition Plan zeroed in on Israel as a threat to Palestinian Arabs whose leadership incited them to 'resist' the 'occupation'.

In Islamic centres, mosques, social gatherings, social media, an amplification of the traditional convention of Jew-blame and hatred has percolated to the top in the wake of the terrorist Hamas invasion of southern Israel on October 7 where mind-bogglingly gruesome sadistic savagery was  unloosed on unsuspecting Israelis and the military outposts on the border with Gaza. Outdoing even their grisly penchant for blood and slaughter, thousands of terrorists filmed themselves indulging in and celebrating a mass slaughter, rape, mutilations, abductions of innocent civilians.

Despite the horrors of inhumanity perpetrated by well-rehearsed operatives of Palestinian terrorist groups, dismayingly, the international community has been fairly receptive to Hamas supporters in their midst as citizens of Europe and North America claiming that their battle for sovereign status from under the repressive heel of a Jewish state engrossed in a mission of Palestinian genocide, championing and supporting terrorists as liberators. In Canada and elsewhere around the globe, Hamas sympathizers have roused the latent antisemitism in communities.

In Canada in particular where the reigning Liberal government of Justin Trudeau feels itself heavily dependent on the goodwill of Muslim voters as a bloc that responds to the Liberal message, the message is that there will be no repercussions for the verbal violence claiming the need for a 'final solution' to the Jewish question, for the liberation of Palestine, for a global intifada. Characterizing the Palestinian 'protests' roiling society as merely free speech in action, deliberately overlooking the calls to destroy Israel and kill Jews, the Trudeau government sees nothing amiss.

Predictably, the same organized Palestinian students who planned and carried out protests and university campus encampments with the aid of foreign funding and non-university Palestinian groups whose format of slander and abuse upset normalcy in the social order, seeing no action taken by any level of government, giving them free rein to do as they would in clearly unlawful and criminal acts of intimidation and violence, would feel free to escalate.

Leading someone like Canadian citizen Zachareah Adam Quraishi to up the ante by travelling to Israel for the express purpose of committing violent extreme acts of antisemitism in Israel. A tourist visa gained this man entry to the country where he undertook to rush guards outside a southern Israel town to knife them, shouting "free Palestine!" at Israeli security guards who met him on his own terms and shot him to death as he was attacking them.

The town was Netiv Ha'asara, a farming community, one of many devastated by the terrorist attack of October 7, where in Netiv Ha'asara, twenty of its residents were murdered. Despite Jewish Canadian groups appealing endlessly to the federal government to put an end to the violent rhetoric and escalating violence against Jews in Canada, there was no response from the federal government, itself content to allow the anti-Israel protests to continue and as they did, create predictable escalation.

"Canada has a history of having foreign fighters -- Canadian citizens go off to distant lands in the Middle East and commit egregious acts of violence."

"We were a country that garnered, and rightfully so, international attention during allied operations to counter ISIS, because of how many Canadians have gone off to join the caliphate."

"You have people calling for the erasure of the only Jewish state standing in front of crowds of thousands calling for the death of Zionists -- which is just a code word for Jews; you have decapitated mannequin heads of Bibi Netanyahu being kicked around like soccer balls in Toronto; you have synagogues being burned; you have Jewish day schools being shot at."

"When the overwhelming majority of this goes on without any repercussions, you allow these ideas to take root and become normalized."

Casey Babb, senior fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute

What Islam Has Wrought

"These guys are different. What they do to the people they capture and kill I have never seen anywhere in Africa, and I have been in a lot of places in Africa."

"When you mutilate people after you kill them, you cut their bodies in half, you skin them, you cut their heads off and then you cut their limbs off ... the brutality is unbelievable."

"The locals have been bullied by all kinds of people. So I think you need a concerted effort to clear an area, control it, and put in schools, hospitals, police stations, all those things you need."

"And hold them -- don't just put them there and desert them."

Lionel Dyck, Zimbabwean mercenary

"Nine percent of them are probably local recruits, around a very small hard core of real committed Islamists."

"Why was Palma a target? There are not many rich targets left, and loot and food and redistribution of goodies is important because I am sure religion is not the primary motivation for many of their fighters."

"It is about dialogue, so you have to accept that some of these insurgents you have to talk to."

Alex Vines, head, Africa program, Chatham House

A woman, called Elsa by UK-based aid group Save the Children, walks with a child in a displacement camp in the northern Mozambique province of Cabo Delgado on January 26, 2021. © Rui Mutemba/Save the Children/REUTERS

Last week the Mozambican town of Palma was assaulted by Islamist terrorists in an attack of appalling inhumanity, reports of which shocked the world community. Hundreds of well-armed terrorists took possession of the entire town, there is no longer any vestiges of law and order, civilians who manage to evade being murdered and dismembered are on their own to protect themselves and their families, even as the psychopathic attackers gorge themselves on slaughter, knowing there is no authority to bring an end to their atrocities.

This is in the nature of Islamist insurgencies, but this one in particular has distinguished itself by the level of its ghoulish brutality. The insurgency has managed to grow in strength for close to four years, despite government tasking the country's military forces to counter and combat it. The government signed a contract with a mercenary outfit, a private security firm hired to help the military quell the insurgency. The level of bloodthirsty atrocities encountered by the mercenaries has shocked even its experienced head, Lionel Dyck.

In Mozambique's remote Cabo Delgado province locals refer to the insurgents as "mysterious", as "Islamist", or "Islamic State-linked". They have, in fact, identified themselves as having adopted the principles and the ideology and the methodology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. And ISIL has returned the compliment, hailing itself as the benefactor and command-control of the insurgency, voluntarily linking its goals to that of ISIL.

 

The United States named one individual as a controlling member of the group which it officially labelled a terrorist organization on March 10; Abu Yassir Hassan, considered to be the leader of the movement, and a Tanzanian cleric. This is an uprising destabilizing Mozambique quite unlike similar insurrections occurring in other countries of Africa facing guerrilla war outbreaks. In October of 2017 30 youths armed with machetes surrounded the Mocimboa da Praia police station, where they slaughtered those within, ordering Sharia law on the locals.

The movement has been identified by academics as having had its genesis a decade earlier when a sect emerged that clashed with the local Sufis and Gulf-funded Wahabbi Muslim area leaders. The origins of the sect has been traced to a preacher called Sualehe Rafayel. Eric Morier-Genoud of Queen's University Belfast, writes that in 2007 Sualehe Rafavel returned to Cabo Delgada having spent several years in neighbouring Tanzania.

He founded a group that set about establishing mosques across the region, gaining a reputation for spurning the secular state and over the years to follow, Muslim leaders and the state grew increasingly tense relations in the wake of government efforts to suppress the activities of the sect. Access to manpower, money and weapons was extended by allying with miners, illicit traders and organized crime groups around 2016, who were forced out of business, evicted from a rich ruby field in favour of a legal mine.

Following that era, the group expanded steadily to attain an arsenal of weapons, raiding Mozambican police and military units and looting their weaponry. Rocket-propelled grenades and mortars have also recently come into their possession. Evidence exists that some members were trained in the Congo and in Somalia. South African extremists joined the group, which in 2019 declared its allegiance to Islamic State. 

An estimated 700,000 people have now been displaced by the ongoing conflict, fleeing their homes in a desperate search for refuge from the violence. The increasingly emptying countryside has resulted in surging food shortages and attacks against army-escorted supply convoys, while a severe lack of potable water has contributed to an outbreak of cholera. Amnesty International last month accused the insurgents, the Mozambican government, and the Dyck Advisory Group of war crimes.

The insurgency can no longer use Tanzania as a rear area base, since a clampdown by Tanzanian security forces last year. The militants were pushed back from threatening the provincial capital of Pemba by Col.Dyck's force of 18 helicopter-borne mercenaries deployed by contract a year ago. Mozambique president Filipe Nyusi has offered amnesty to Islamist insurgents who have surrendered. 

 

And it is Col.Dyck's experienced impression that re-establishing order in the province can be achieved only through dialogue, attributing many of the more recent members of the insurgent group to impoverished locals joining up, whose needs the central government has seen fit to ignore.

"On March 10, the State Department announced the designation of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria-Mozambique (ISIS-Mozambique) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria-Democratic Republic of the Congo (ISIS-DRC) as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) while also designating respective leaders of those organizations, Abu Yasir Hassan and Seka Musa Baluku, as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs)."

"In the case of Mozambique, this decision is a response to the growing threat posed by Ahlu Sunna wa Jama (ASWJ), known as ISIS-Mozambique in U.S. government circles, which operates in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province. Violence escalated dramatically in 2020; the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) reported more than 570 violent attacks, including attacks in Tanzania. There have been widespread allegations of human rights abuses by ASWJ, Mozambican forces, and private military contractors (PMCs) operating at the behest of the Mozambican government. The violence has led to the displacement of over 670,000 people, caused major food shortages and market disruptions, and led to a pervasive sense of insecurity. Nearly 700,000 people in Cabo Delgado are in need of some form of basic assistance."

CSIS - Center for Strategic and International Studies

Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

"We saw some Azerbaijan drones in the sky looking for targets, but we didn't think the fire station would be a target because we're a humanitarian service."

"Now it's going to make it harder for us to rescue innocent victims of this war. They are doing this shelling just to cause panic among people."

Armen Naremanian, senior firefighter, Stepanakeri, Nagorno-Karabakh

"I am not scared. I was fighting in 1988 and killed many Turks and mujahedeen who were fighting then."

"And as for these rockets? I will cut the tubes in half, and use them as troughs to feed my pigs."

Yura Arzumanian, 52, farmer, veteran of the 90s war

 

"Mil objects in large cities of Azerbaijan are the target of the Defense Army of #Artsakh [Armenian name of Nagorno-Karabakh]."

"Calling on Azerbaijani population to leave these cities to avoid inevitable loss." 

"Currently firing stopped upon my command to avoid loss among #civilians. Failing Azerbaijani military-political leadership to draw appropriate lessons, our commensurate response will pursue. Determined as never. #Azerbaijan can still stop its aggression."

Nagorno-Karabakh leader Arayik Harutyunyan

 

"The Ministry of Defense of the Republic of #Armenia formally declares that no fire of any kind is being opened from the territory of Armenia in the #Azerbaijan's direction."

Shushan Stepanyan, press secretary, Armenia's Defense Minister

Smoke rises after the recent shelling, in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh.  CNN

"The information spread by the Armenian side about the alleged shelling of military facilities in Ganja city is provocative and false."

"As a result of enemy fire, civilians, civilian infrastructure and ancient historical buildings were harmed."

Azerbaijan Defence Minister Zakary Hasanov

 

"Indiscriminate Missile attacks are launched against Ganja, Füzuli, Tartar and Jabrayil cities of Azerbaijan from territory of Armenia. "

"Ganja is the second biggest city of Azerbaijan. 500.000+ population."

Hikmet Hajiyev,  foreign policy aide, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev

 

"Nagorno-Karabakh is our land. [Armenian forces] must leave our territories, not in words but in deeds, [provide a timetable for a full withdrawal, and recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan]."

"This is the end. We showed them who we are. We are chasing them like dogs."

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev

Several buildings in Ganja were destroyed, Azerbaijani officials say   Azerbaijan Defence Ministry

Arayik Harutyunyan, Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian leader confirmed his forces had targeted a military airbase in Ganja over the border in Azerbaijan, identifying it as the source of missiles landing in Nagorno-Karabakh. He had decided to stop shelling the city of a half-million, said to be Azerbaijan's second-largest city, to avoid hitting innocent civilians. But he put Azerbaijan on notice that if it continued shelling his enclave, there would be consequences; warning it now considers "military facilities in Azerbaijan's big cities" to be legitimate targets for response to Azeri attacks.

This is nothing but typical of Islamic warfare, to establish bases and arms caches within civilian populations. Also typical, is the shelling by those same Islamic militaries of civilian institutions such as firehalls, medical clinics and hospitals. It has been seen in Syria's Alawite regime's shelling of hospitals in territories held by majority Sunny Syrian rebels, along with the bombing of bread lines, clinics and civilian enclaves where most homes sheltered Syrian Sunnis. The famed White Helmets rescue missions were bombed,as well, by Syrian warplanes.

The aggressor here is clearly Azerbaijan, fixated on recapturing the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani territory. The ethnic Armenian majority that now represents the enclave's population base and its leaders are under fire and they're fighting back equally determined to protect the geography they defend as their own. There are parallels to ethnic Russian-Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine mounting their separatist movement and Russia's capture of Crimea. Russia is on the support side of Armenia, clearly a religion-and-ethnic bias.

Firefighter Armen Naaremanian foresaw being involved in the protection of his city of Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, but as a firefighter, not as a member of the military; he hardly anticipated that his fire station would become a target of Azeri shelling. Now he is tasked like the Syrian White Helmets, with rescuing people out of bombed-out buildings and in the process himself running for cover from the rockets launched from Azerbaijan. 

Pro-Azerbaijan protesters in Istanbul, Ozan Köse/AFP/Getty Images

A constant barrage of Azeri artillery has hit in and around Stepanakert in the past week, some striking military targets, while others came down into nearby hills and gorges, and some destroyed civilian homes and farmsteads. Stepanakert has become a deliberate target for Azerbaijan in its campaign of aggression, aided by Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling up his Islamist terrorist allies in the process, promising to be with Azerbaijan to the very end, until it has achieved its goal.

Azerbaijan considers the ethnic Armenian-ruled Nagorno-Karabakh an insulting blow to its honour calling out for retribution and recapture into its sovereign geographic holdings. When thirty years ago Armenian-dominated Nagorno-Karabakh fought for independence it chose Stepanakert as its capital of the breakaway enclave, today a city of 50,000. That earlier war's brutal bombing campaign where 40,000 died, can still be seen in unrestored buildings in some areas. Farmland close to the Azeri front lines cannot be worked because of landmines.

 

In the past decades there have been skirmishes leading to the deaths of an estimated 3,000, many of those deaths by snipers firing from front lines. Initially the two sides were matched for military numbers with the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh receiving military and political support from Armenia. Since then oil wealth enjoyed by Azerbaijan has weighted assaults in its favour. Alongside Turkey's support Azerbaijan has acquired new drone weaponry to target the old Soviet-era tanks that comprise Nagorno-Karabakh's military armamentarium. 

Atepanakert is in preparations for a siege, with hotels and local houses sheltering women and children evacuated from outlying villages. Proprietors of shops and businesses have volunteered for the front lines, closing their businesses temporarily. Residents are ordered regularly to take cover in bombproof shelters, by air raid sirens. The city switches its lights off at night to avoid being a target for drone attacks. French president Emmanuel Macron criticizes Turkey's Erdogan for sending Syrian jihadis to fight alongside Azerbaijani forces.

Even so, Ilham Aliev, the president of Azerbaijan insists the "ball was in the court of Armenia", which must withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh prior to any ceasefire discussions. That Nagorno-Karabakh's ultrapatriotic residents would concede defeat despite facing a superior military equipped with newer fighting technologies is beyond unlikely to occur. When veteran fighter of the original war in the 90s, Hura Arzumanian, woke up at the sound of three Azeri missiles landing in his farmstead acreage on the outskirts of Stepanakert which failed to explode he was undaunted.

 

With encouragement from Turkey's Erdogan, Azerbaijan has ignored calls from Russia, the U.S., France and the European Union for a ceasefire and an end to the violence. Instead, the conflict and the violence is increasing. The Karabakh cities of Stepanakert and Martakert have come under attack by Azerbaijani war jets and long-range missiles. A string of villages have been captured by Azerbaijani forces, while Armenia admitted ethnic Armenian fighters are under pressure in some areas, with a fluctuating situation on the ground.

 

 

Delivering Another Message of Indelibly Violent Hatred in Paris

A victim being treated  EVN David Cohen

"Two colleagues were smoking a cigarette outside the building, in the street. I heard shouting."

"I went to the window and saw one of my colleagues, covered in blood, being chased by a man with a machete in the street."

Staff member, Premières Lignes production firm

 

"Through this highly symbolic place, it is once again freedom of expression that is targeted." 

"We must remain vigilant and mobilized to defend this pillar of our Republic and protect our citizens."

Anne Hidalgo, Paris Mayor

 

"The government is ... determined with all its means to fight terrorism."

"[The attack took place at a] symbolic place [coinciding with the start of the trial of 14 Islamist accomplices in the 2015 attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo]."

Prime Minister Jean Castex

"Once again, hatred, gratuitous hatred. I was here five  years ago."

"Five years later, we're here again. I don't know when this is going to end."

Dr.Nathan Messas, resident, 11th arrondissement, eastern Paris

 

"It's somebody who was in the road with a meat cleaver who attacked them in front of our offices."

"[Two of my colleagues wounded]. It was chilling."

Paul Moreira, journalist, Premieres Lignes

The public has been told to avoid the area in Paris's 11th arrondissement  Reuters

Friday, close to the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine saw an Islamist terrorist strike again, stabbing two journalists, in an echo of the 2015 attack that killed twelve people and injured another 11. The main attacker, an 18-year-old man of Pakistani origin is under arrest. The two people he attacked were treated for their injuries and will survive the attack. Another person, an Algerian, was placed in custody soon after the attack. Further investigation led to the arrest of an additional six people as accomplices.

Witnesses reported seeing a meat cleaver or butcher's knife used as the attacking weapon. A local resident spoke of hearing a long, deathly shout from "a person who was screaming and screaming".

Another neighbour saw people with a wounded woman, bundling her into a building housing a news agency. Outside, the ground was covered with blood. Workers who had been repairing the road informed that "a dark-skinned man randomly hit a lady with a big butcher's knife".

The attack had taken place adjacent to a mural placed in memory of the victims of the 2015 deadly Charlie Hebdo attack. The weapon, seen to be a meat cleaver covered in blood, was discovered on the ground close to a metro station near the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. The main suspect had been arrested by the metro station; easily identifiable since he was covered in blood. A man known previously to security services. 

The trial of those associated with the 2015 attack at the Charlie Hebdo offices saw the court hearing that all 14 on trial had acted for the purpose of avenging the Prophet Mohammad. This conspiratorial act of terrorism took place ten years following the publication of cartoons mocking Mohammad by the satirical magazine. Al-Qaeda at the time had claimed responsibility for the 2015 attack, and threatened to replay the scenario, when the magazine had once again published the cartoons in September 2020.

 

At the trial the defendants are facing accusations of having aided another jihadist in his terrorism attack where he shot a policewoman dead, and followed that up by attacking a Jewish market, killing four people in the process. It was over a period of three days of violence that the entire 17 victims were killed by the three attackers who were themselves killed by police. Those chilling killing episodes were just the start of a wave of jihadist attacks to strike across France, ultimately leaving over 250 people dead.

That last threat by al-Qaeda, to return to new attacks after Charlie Hebdo had re-published the Mohammad cartoons when the current trial began, led to police moving the head of human resources for Charlie Hebdo from her home this week, following threats received against her life.

 

Heavily-armed police quickly sealed off the area   Reuters

The Atrocity-Loving ISIL 'Beatles' Execution Cell

"Time is of the essence. Further delay is no longer possible [if the two men are to be scheduled for trial in the United States]. Further delay is an injustice to the families of the victims."                                                                                           "On behalf of the US Department of Justice, I am writing to provide an assurance that if the United Kingdom grants our mutual legal assistance request, the United States will not seek the death penalty in any prosecutions it might bring against Alexanda Kotey or El Shafee Elsheikh, and if imposed, the death penalty will not be carried out."                                                                                                           U.S. Attorney General William Barr

El Shafee el-Sheikh (L) and Alexanda Kotey (R) in photos provided by the SDF in February 2018

 

 

 

 

They were part of the Islamic State execution cell, gaining horrified notoriety in the cold-blooded murders of U.S. and British journalists and activists they captured and video-taped in a campaign of terrorism to gain a reputation as fearless and indomitable warriors of Islamofascism, creating a fearsome reputation for themselves in the process, while at the same time using the propaganda of jihad and beheading of helpless prisoners to gain the fascinated support of Islamist jihadis in the West who flocked to Syria to join ISIL.

Now, the United States is persuading the British government that should they transfer evidence in aid of the U.S. prosecution for the two suspects' involvement in the executions of American, British and other foreign hostages in Syria, the U.S. is prepared to forego the death penalty once their trial has concluded. Reasonably enough, evidence is required to hold justifiable yet reasonable trials. Evidence difficult to obtain given geographic distances and a closed terrorist society when the challenge to prosecutors and intelligence agencies is to procure evidence of a quality to stand up in a court of law.

The alternative is to just hand over ISIL members captured and imprisoned by the Kurdish forces, to the Iraqi government. There, trials may take place but their substance in justice can be questioned; they are not too queasy to impose death sentences in the absence of hard evidence that meticulous prosecutors in the Western world are adamant must be obtained not to produce a sham trial, but to find guilt or innocence based on acceptable proofs. Handed over to Iraq, the two would be certain to be summarily executed.

El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, two parts of a four-part cell of ISIL members implicated in the beheadings of hostages, and whose verbal intonations led their captives to call them "the Beatles", in recognition of their British accents, were scheduled to receive the death penalty as a result of being placed on trial in the United States, which had taken the two men off the hands of their Kurdish captors, glad to be rid of them from the stable of thousands of ISIL members apprehended and held in Kurdish controlled camps.

The case against the two has been held up in recognition of litigation where Elsheikh's mother has sued in Britain to prevent evidence sharing, inclusive of voice analysis which ties the men to the hostages, and details relating to their journey from Britain to Syria. In response to the U.S. administration's grudging agreement not to impose the death penalty, however, a Home Office spokesperson responded: "Legal proceedings are ongoing before the Supreme Court and we are prevented by a court order from transferring the evidence to the U.S. at this time".

Alexanda Kotey (left) Elshafee Elsheikh, at a SDF location in Northern Syria

The beheading on camera of U.S. journalist James Foley in 2014, initiated a series of brutal executions, some of them beheadings, crucifixions, immersive cage drownings, death by explosives, and other imaginative cruelties that transfixed the international community with each release of a fresh new video of yet another atrocious act of inhumanity. That initial video with James Foley kneeling in an orange jumpsuit caused his family huge anguish, even as incredulity at the raw barbarism ignited public outrage.

The masked executioner whose blade severed the victims' heads from their bodies spoke with a British accent and was identified early in 2015 as Mohammed Emwazi; soon to be named "Jihadi John", himself killed in a drone strike that same fall. The four Londoners, according to former hostages who survived their ordeals, subjected them to repeated beatings, waterboarding and mock executions. The fourth member of the quartet, Aine David was convicted in Turkey in 2017 to serve a 7-year prison sentence.

"I am very grateful to hear that the attorney general  has reached out to the Home Secretary. This feels like a gift from God and our son Jim, who was brutally murdered six years ago today", said Diane Foley, journalist James Foley's mother. Britain had stripped Elsheikh and Kotey of their citizenship with the conviction that undergoing a trial in the United States for terrorism would reflect the best approach. Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid agreed in 2018 to share evidence gathered by the British.

Which inspired Elsheikh's mother to sue for the purpose of halting the transfer of evidence to the U.S. The families of the murdered hostages have placed the U.S. government under relentless pressure to mount a prosecution, seeking some form of justice and closure on the horrible deaths of their loved ones. Both men claim not to have known that the hostages they themselves tortured would be murdered until the beheading of Mr. Foley on camera. "At the time there wasn't much anyone could do about it", said Kotey.

 A Kurdish security officer, right, escorts Alexanda Amon Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh, center, allegedly among four British jihadis who made up a brutal Islamic State cell dubbed “The Beatles,” at a security center in Kobani, Syria, Friday, March 30, 2018. “The Beatles” terror cell is believed to have captured, tortured and killed hostages including American, British and Japanese journalists and aid workers. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

The Religion of Peace At It Again

"You see him on his Facebook profile and he’s smiling."
"It’s infuriating because you think to yourself, he shouldn’t be allowed to smile. He’s a killer, right? But there he is."
"[His name can be seen written on the base of his ammunition, which] would be typical of officers of the Philippine National Police worn by the Special Counter Insurgency Operation Unit, or SCOUT] being responsible for their issued kit."
"With that congruence of factors going on we have strong reason to believe that he was at some point a police officer within the PNP. And we’ve got nothing to refute that at this time." 
"[SCOUT training] would put him in an ideal position for a leadership role within Abu Sayyaf. Everything that you would need to know to attack Abu Sayyaf, now you have this member within Abu Sayyaf that can counter all of those different things that are happening to them."
So it’s a really significant finding in terms of our investigation and it also points to the difficulty that the Philippine army is having in trying to stop, get rid of, remove Abu Sayyaf."

"I think, like all Canadians, we were shocked by what was taking place. And having our skill set and knowing that Abu Sayyaf was very active on social media, we saw an opportunity to see if there was any way that we could provide input or gather intelligence on the group ourselves.
And so when the initial hostage videos, the ransom videos, came out, we started to monitor Abu Sayyaf on primarily Facebook."


"The fact that he stepped forward to be the executioner in both John Risdel and Robert Hall’s murders, there’s a reason for that. He’s looking to take on a broader role. And having that skill set, that SCOUT training, would also accelerate him up the ladder."


Jeff Weyers, senior analyst,Waterloo, Ontario-based iBrabo, Global News, December 18, 2018

Facebook photo believed to show Abu Sayyaf militant Bhen Tatuh wearing a Philippine National Police uniform

The RCMP is aware of the independent report.""We continue to work with our international partners regarding the ongoing criminal investigation into the deaths of Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall in the Philippines."Sgt. Marie Damian, spokesperson, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Facebook photo of Behn Tatuh, with ISIS flag behind him.
iBrabo

That was then, when Canadians anxiously read news reports of the two kidnapped Canadians for whose release the Islamist terrorist group now associated formally with Islamic State, was demanding millions. That was when newly-installed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated firmly that Canada does not pay ransom to terrorists. Of course, Canada has done so, through intermediaries in the past, it is why it came about that two former Canadian diplomats, Robert Fowler and Louis Guay taken hostage in Niger by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) were finally released, though then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper denied having paid ransom.

More latterly, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Jolo island where Abu Sayyaf militants have continued to carry out kidnappings, beheadings and bombings was attacked as devout Catholic Filipinos were at prayer on Sunday. Window panels were blasted out by the force of the first bomb that hurled humans and debris across the town square in the provincial capital of Sulu. In response to this latest atrocity Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, ordered his troops to hunt down and crush the Abu Sayyaf group. 

They've done a bang-up job with drug traffickers, not so great with Islamist terrorists. "This is an act of terrorism. This is not a religious war", confusingly stated the Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, identifying Abu Sayyaf commander Hatib Sawadjaan as being responsible for the attack. This is the commander of the group that beheaded the two Canadians back in 2009, when the ransom demand went unfulfilled. His base is the jungles close to the town of Patikul near Jolo. 



The minority Muslim population in predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines had endorsed a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines to put an end to close to five decades of separatist rebellion in which 150,000 people had been killed. Most of the Muslim areas had approved autonomy, while those in Sulu province chose to reject the deal. 

Typical of Islamic State, there were two suicide bombers involved, wearing explosive belts. One of the bombers detonated his explosives at the gate, and while wounded parishioners began to flee the interior of the cathedral, and armed forces personnel were rushing in, the second suicide bomber detonated his explosives in the parking lot. The death toll was twenty, while another 111 people were wounded; five troops and 15 civilians made up the death count.

A soldier views the site inside a Roman Catholic cathedral in southern Philippines after two bombs exploded Sunday.

"As we convey our sincerest condolences to the families and friends of the victims and offer our sympathy to the peace-loving people of Sulu who are severely affected by this dastardly act, we assure our people that we will use the full force of the law to bring to justice the perpetrators behind this incident."

"[People should] remain calm and avoid spreading panic in our respective communities to deny terrorism any victory."

Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana

Even in the Philippines, with tough-guy Duterte at the helm, authorities take exquisite care not to rile the sensibilities and besmirch the 'honour' of Islam by speaking words such as Islamist terrorists, lest the beast be bestirred to even greater and more horrendous atrocities; not that President Duterte would mind all that much being accused of 'Islamophobia'.