How did Jahanzeb Malik get the idea that what he was doing in plotting jihad mass murder had anything to do with Islam? After all, all non-Muslim authorities assure us that jihad terror is completely distinct from Islam. Yet here is Jahanzeb Malik thinking that he can teach about Islam. The cognitive dissonance is enormous.
“Undercover cop testifies to Jahanzeb Malik’s terrorist intentions,” by Jacques Gallant, The Canadian Press, May 12, 2015:
Two very different versions of the man accused of wanting to blow up the U.S. Consulate in Toronto emerged on Tuesday at the first day of his deportation hearing.
There was Jahanzeb Malik, the “simple Muslim” who travelled to Libya to teach English, enjoyed long walks along the beautiful Mediterranean Sea and had a pet cat named Simba.
And then there was Jahanzeb Malik, the radical who trained with Al Qaeda in Libya, learned how to use explosives, was his unit commander’s right-hand man and tried to radicalize an undercover police officer by showing him videos of Islamic State beheadings and mass executions.
The former description came from Malik himself at the hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board, which must decide whether to deport the 33-year-old permanent resident back to Pakistan, in light of government allegations that he wanted to blow up the consulate and other downtown Toronto buildings.
The undercover RCMP officer, who befriended Malik during a Canada Border Services Agency investigation last year and cannot be identified under a publication ban, painted a very different portrait of the separated father of two.
“He said he was absolutely supportive of the cause, supportive of Al Qaeda,” the officer testified under questioning from government counsel Jessica Lourenco. “He also supported the Islamic State.”
That’s good to remember for those who think that the two groups are irremediably at odds.
While Malik never mentioned seeing active combat, the officer said Malik talked about training in an Al Qaeda camp, said his favourite weapon was the AK-47 assault rifle, and that he went to Libya “to kill or get killed.”
Malik, who watched proceedings from the Lindsay, Ont., jail where he has been held since March 9, kept his head down during most of the officer’s testimony.
The officer said he had two instructions: have Malik offer an estimate for floor work at the officer’s house — Malik said he ran his own flooring business and had put an ad on Kijiji — and then get Malik to rent the house.
The undercover officer portrayed himself as a veteran of the Bosnian War, who had fought on the Muslim side and had lost his wife, two daughters and mother in the conflict. After Malik visited him last September, the two would meet regularly at the house to drink coffee and have a cigarette.
“We had conversations about religion every single time we met. Mr. Malik would call me ‘student,’” the officer said, adding that Malik would “explain Islam” to him. He eventually got Malik to rent the house for $600 a month.
Malik said Muslims around the world were under attack, the officer testified, and that there were 80 countries that were against the Islamic State and Muslims. “He said believers were ready to die,” the officer testified.
Malik told the officer his family had disowned him, his own brother labeling him a terrorist. He was not fazed by the idea of being arrested and deported, said the officer.
“He said he would gladly spread the word of Allah somewhere else,” the officer said. “He would devote all of his time to praying and that if they kill him, they would send him straight to heaven.”…