MONTREAL, Canada – Radicalization among Canadian youth is on the rise, with an estimated 130 citizens fighting in Syria and Iraq, according to a recent report.
The official report by Public Safety Canada said that, out of 130 individuals with Canadian connections abroad and suspected of terrorism-related activities, more than 30 are currently involved in Syria.
“The number of extremist traveler’s participating in the conflict (in Syria) is hard to determine, but is believed to be greater than the number that traveled to the conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq,” said the report, released on August 29.
Over the last 10 days, an additional four Canadians have been reported to be among militants of the Islamic State (IS/formerly ISIS) or al-Qaeda. That raises the total number of Canadian citizens, identified since the beginning of this year to be fighting in jihads, to seven.
Last week, Canada’s CBC News reported unidentified sources as saying that the captors of US journalists Theo Curtis and Matt Schrier were three Canadians. The militants are believed to be alive and still active with al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusrah in Syria.
Calgarian Salman Ashrafi was reported dead last November in a suicide bombing mission in Iraq that took the lives of 46 people.
Another Calgarian, Farah Mohamed Shirdon, was seen on a video burning his Canadian passport and saying: “This is a message to Canada and all American tyrants: we are coming and we will destroy you.” He was reported dead in a battle in Syria a few weeks ago.
The annual report warned of that jihadi recruits pose threats to both the countries where they travel to fight, and their home countries.
Jihadis who IS are trained in using weapons and making bombs, while developing a strong anti-Western mentality.
For Western countries, the prospects of seeing these citizens return are alarming.
“The Government is aware of about 80 individuals who have returned to Canada after travel abroad for a variety of suspected terrorism-related purposes,” the report read.
Canadian MP Wayne Easter tabled a notice of motion urgently seeking hearings on any threat to Canada posed by fighters involved with IS or other Islamic radical groups.
Last month, British Prime Minister David Cameron raised the threat alert from “substantial” to “severe” because of the direct threat represented by IS.
Radicalization in Canada is a known fact to Canadian intelligence agencies. In 2012, a secret intelligence report that was made public the following year acknowledged “radicalization leading to Sunni Islamist extremist violence is occurring in Canada.”
“Radicalization has been detected in a number of venues” and not just in religious centers, that report mentioned. The Internet, family circles, prisons and traveling abroad were found to persuade an increasing number of Canadian nationals to shift to extremism. “Radicalization will continue to develop in the foreseeable future in Canada,” it warned.
Young Canadians are being “brainwashed” by elders, community leaders and lecturers to “change their beliefs,” said Imam Syed Soharwardy, founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada.
“It is going to continue for a long time, as long those people are given free hands to hold lectures and seminars in universities, in high schools, in the mosques, in the community centers,” he told Rudaw in a telephone interview.
IS seizure of swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, where the militants have declared a cross-border caliphate, appeals to some youth, the imam said.
They think, “Nobody could do it, these are the people doing it, so let’s go and join them!” said Soharwardy, who just staged a three-day hunger strike to draw attention to homegrown terrorism.
He said he had seen some “good young men” with a “bright future ahead of them” disappear for months, sometimes years, until they were reported dead on battlefields in the Middle East.
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