Why didn’t Amiruddin contact authorities? Why are we only hearing about this now, while simultaneously Canadian Muslim leaders are blaming authorities for not telling them about the plot? “Teacher witnessed transformation of some bomb-plot suspects,” from CBC News, with thanks to LGF:
A Muslim religious leader in Toronto who knows some of those charged in the suspected bomb plot says the young men underwent rapid transformations from normal Canadian teenagers to radicalized introverts.
Sayyid Ahmed Amiruddin got to know Saad Khalid, 19, and some of the other alleged conspirators at a local mosque.
Khalid was arrested last Friday at a warehouse, where he and another suspect allegedly took delivery of what they thought was ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, and the same substance used in the deadly Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
Fifteen others are also facing charges connected to the alleged plot.
Entered mosque to pray
Amiruddin says Khalid used to come to his mosque to pray, sometimes in the company of Zakaria Amara and Fahim Ahmad, two of the alleged ringleaders.
“They would enter into the mosque to pray, and they would pray in a very aggressive manner, and they would come in military fatigues and military touques and stuff. It looked to me that they were watching a lot of those Chechnyan jihad videos online and stuff.”
Amiruddin is a teacher of Sufism, a traditional brand of Islam that rejects the ideology of jihad.
But not historically. See here for details.
Amiruddin says the group was seduced by hardline propaganda financed by the Saudi government and promoting a strict, Wahhabi brand of Islam.
He says the Saudis have flooded Canada with free Qur’ans, laced with jihadist commentary.
“In the back of these Qur’ans that are being published in Saudi Arabia, you have basically essays on the need for offensive jihad and the legitimacy of offensive jihad and things like that. Very alarming stuff,” he said.
Amiruddin said many mainstream Muslim organizations in Canada are really part of the problem, standing by as extremist propaganda spreads in the mosques.
But do not these words reproach him also — unless he has been working with Canadian officials and the article doesn’t tell us that?
He cites the Al-Rahman centre in Mississauga, Ont., which he links to the Al-Maghrib Institute, which runs a popular educational website. It’s nominally run out of Ottawa, but Amiruddin says it’s really a Saudi operation.
Recruiting young teens
Amiruddin says Khalid underwent a rapid transition from a clean-cut Canadian teenager to a long-haired, radicalized introvert.
He says the young men would pray by themselves, and try to recruit younger teens to the fundamentalist Wahhabi view.
What did Amiruddin do to try to stop that recruitment? Did he implement a comprehensive program to teach young Muslims the errors of the “Wahhabi view”? Or did he just stand by passively?