Terror in Ottawa – Editorial

(dailyalert.org, Oct. 23, 2014)

In 2006 Canadian security officials arrested 18 Canadian jihadists who had been plotting a terrorist spectacular against multiple targets, including the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Ottawa Parliament and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In April 2013, Canadian police charged two men with a plot to derail a passenger train. The pair had connections to an al-Qaeda cell based in Iran. In July, two converts to Islam were arrested plotting to bomb the British Columbia provincial legislature in Victoria using pressure-cooker bombs. On Monday, another convert struck and murdered a soldier with his car at a Montreal mall.

On Oct. 8, Canada’s National Post reported that Canadian security officials were “investigating 63 national security cases linked to terrorism and involving 90 suspects.” The war now being half-heartedly waged against ISIS and other jihadist groups is not some faraway struggle, but part of a war also being waged on Western streets. (Wall Street Journal)

The Terrorism Threat to Canada – Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi  According to data from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), more than 130 Canadian citizens have left the country to join terror organizations in other countries, including the Islamic State, and about 80 of these individuals have returned to Canada. The long list of Canadian terrorists indicates the seriousness of the country’s domestic terror threat, which is fed by the trend of Islamic radicalization and by the role of the Islamic State as a source of authority and inspiration for many Canadian Muslims.

Recently the caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, conveyed detailed instructions for Muslims in Canada and other countries that are part of the anti-Islamic State military coalition to act immediately and in any fashion possible to kill “nonbelievers.”  (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)