We are constantly told that all Muslims in the West are moderate, and that only greasy Islamophobes would dare to suggest that there should be any surveillance of mosques and Muslim gatherings such as the New York Police Department used to conduct. Why should mosques be under any more surveillance than the local Methodist church, which, after all, is just as likely to inspire a terrorist? Why should Muslims in the West be the object of any more scrutiny than Amish, who are just as likely to turn terrorist?
The problem with this narrative is that reality keeps intervening; not that anyone has noticed.
“Ottawa investigating claims that Canadian was responsible for 2013 suicide attack in Iraq,” by Stewart Bell, National Post, May 16, 2014:
Encouraged by its success in northern Syria, Al-Qaeda in Iraq went on a rampage north and west of Baghdad last November, blowing up military barracks, police checkpoints, outdoor markets and even a gathering of Shiite pilgrims.
Six months later, Al-Qaeda’s north Baghdad branch released “martyrdom” notices identifying the suicide bombers responsible for the attacks, and officials in Ottawa are investigating claims that one of them was a Canadian.
Abu Abdullah Al Khorasani, whom jihadists are referring to as a “Canadian brother,” was described on an Al-Qaeda in Iraq Twitter feed as one of a pair of suicide bombers who struck an army base last November.
“We are aware of reports of a deadly suicide attack against a military facility in Tarmiyah, Iraq in November 2013,” Jean-Bruno Villeneuve, a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman, said Friday. “We are seeking more information on these events.”
Al Khorasani does not appear to be his real name and it is uncertain he is actually Canadian. While he may have lived in Canada and has an immigration file with the government, officials suspect he did not become a citizen.
The bombing in Iraq is the latest to be attributed to a Canadian terrorist as police are struggling to prevent radicalized youths from venturing overseas to join armed Islamist groups. Last month, the National Post revealed the RCMP had set up a program to identify “high risk travellers” and disrupt their plans using methods such as denying them passports.
Also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a proscribed terrorist entity under Canadian law. The Public Safety Canada website says the group’s goal is to “wage jihad to expel foreign non-Muslim forces from Iraq, and to overthrow Iraq’s democracy and replace it with an Islamic state that enforces Islamic law.”
As the conflict in Syria has dragged on, Al-Qaeda in Iraq has attracted scores of foreign fighters who want an Islamic state encompassing both Iraq and Syria. The group is the most strident, ultraviolent anti-Assad faction in the north, and is blamed for atrocities ranging from mass executions to beheadings and suicide bombings….