Islamism and the Infiltration Challenge Marc Lebuis, President and CEO, Point de Bascule Notes for Remarks to the 2009 CIVITAS Annual Conference Toronto, ON 2 May 2009 Thank-you for this invitation to discuss an area surrounded the facility where I lived, demands of growing concern, one that is already that a lone Muslim living under our protection, defining, for better or worse, the very life and be handed over to the doubtful mercies of the future of each and every person in this room. gang. Before proceeding with this thought, perhaps I In my business travels well before 9/11, I saw should explain how I come to talk about our other evidence of radicalism, some of it lives and future. explicitly murderous, some of it subtle, supple, almost seductive. Thanks primarily to Muslim I am of French-Canadian, Roman Catholic friends, I awoke to warnings of the worldwide background, some would say a Québécois pur spread of such pathological Islamic strains of laine - "Old Stock". A small-L liberal-pluralist Sunni Islam as Salafism, Saudi-Wahabbism, democrat, I have spent a lifetime dedicated to and the role of the extremist Muslim interreligious and intercultural outreach and Brotherhood whose front organizations now understanding. Interfaith work led me to spend proliferate in Canada and the US. From Iran, years in the multi-faith, multicultural Khomeinism casts its long shadow over Shia democracy that is India. There, amidst Hindu, Islam and, through Tehran's nuclear ambitions, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikhs and other friends, over the rest of us. Christians find evidence of some of their earliest roots - Thomism, and other cousin branches of After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the faith. the 1998 East Africa embassy attacks, and 9/11, the trend was there for anyone who All this pulled me to the subcontinent in a way dared look. Following the 2004 slaughter of that was hopeful, but not naïve. If Buddhists Russian schoolchildren in Beslan, the former and Bahais, Christians and Jews could function Editor of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Abd Al- in the dominant Hindu culture, there were Rahman Al-Rashed, could write that "Obviously nonetheless undeniable problems. I remember not all Muslims are terrorists but, regrettably, the majority of the terrorists in the world are the tumultuous wake of Prime Minister Indira [1] Gandhi's assassination, the angry mob that Muslims." AIMS Commentary – Islamism and the Infiltration Challenge July 2009 But there is something more complicated going headquarters here in Toronto, the Toronto on than direct and immediate violence. We are, Canadian Security Intelligence Service facility, here, in Canada, today, facing a hostile blow up Parliament and behead Canada's prime ideological enemy that has a great deal in minister. Extrapolating, that would be between common with the extremist groups I have 49,000 and 119,000 Canadian Muslims mentioned, but whose modus operandi is often prepared to justify such terrorism against their more subtle and insidious - not immediately country.3 violent. The situation is unlikely to improve, especially A starting point in understanding this is the considering demographics. Look at immigration, captured 1991 strategy document of the Muslim with particular reference to a numerically-stable Brotherhood (MB), the extremist organization group, like Canadian Jews. Through virtually from which derive a host of apparently world-beating per capita immigration - almost respectable Islamic representative groups. In 260,000 people immigrate a year - the truth, front organizations of the Brotherhood, Canadian Muslim population has leapt from have active public relations and influence 98,000 in 1981, about a third of the Jewish operations in Canada - like the Islamic Society population, to over 800,000, today - double the of North America (ISNA) and the Council on number of Jews. In eight years - in 2017 - American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Such groups there will be 1.4 million Muslims, four times are known as three-piece-suited Islamists. The more than Jews.4 Political influence will shift - is 1991 strategy document offers the Muslim shifting - correspondingly. Brotherhood's plans for the Islamist "settlement" - that is, the physical and Prospects for radicalism are worsened by the ideological colonizing - of Canada and the fact that larger, and in some ways, more self- United States. It says: isolating colonies of Muslims could mean greater potential to misunderstand the The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization- mainstream "other", and for undiluted self- Jihadist Process,' with all the word means. The radicalization. Indeed, such possibilities bring to Ikhwan [- the Brotherhood - ] must understand mind the writings of Muhammad Taqi Usmani, a that their work in American is kind of a grand retired sharia justice of Pakistan's Supreme Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western Court. He is a man routinely described as a civilization from within and sabotaging its leading moderate scholar of Deobandi Islam, miserable house by their hands and the hands the biggest Muslim group in the United of the believers so that it is eliminated and Kingdom. A British journalist summed up the God's religion is made victorious over all other former judge's position as being that, "Muslims religions...2 should live peacefully in countries such as Britain, where they have the freedom to This could well be a prescription for violence, practise Islam, only until they gain enough 5 for the MB has been involved in violence. But power to engage in battle." the MB can be very subtle, establishing, for example, conditions that would facilitate All of this points to a further concern: the alienation and radicalization among Muslims growing risk that infiltration and influencers will and, especially, Muslim youth. At a minimum, find their way into the most sensitive reaches of the supremacist, rejectionist dimension of government and business infrastructure. After radical thought can encourage Muslims' all, every religious, ethnic and cultural group hostility, a groundless sense of persecution, and can be expected to be represented in contribute to "Islamistcizing" pressure. government and private sectors in numbers proportional to their presence in the general Radicals have a good deal of material to work population. Any significant deviation in this with. A 2007 Environics poll indicates that 12% would suggest a constitutional breach of some of Canadian Muslims could justify the alleged sort. What becomes of the 12% of that Toronto 18-type of plot - plans to blow up CBC Environics' poll, or even of those who are Page 2 of 9 AIMS Commentary – Islamism and the Infiltration Challenge July 2009 merely ambiguous on issues of loyalty to this have known - that the jihad way is the way to country? liberate your land."6 Infiltration Last year former Phoenix, Arizona Palo Verde nuclear generating station engineer Mohammad In the United States, evidence of Islamist- Reza Alavi was convicted after taking restricted related infiltration is already clear. access codes to his country of origin, Iran. Hezbollah-connected Lebanese immigrant Nada Earlier this month, former US Navy sailor Nadim Prouty was convicted after penetrating Hassan Abu-Jihaad was convicted of giving both the FBI and CIA. intelligence about naval movements - including of a Canadian warship - to potential jihadist Abdurahman Alamoudi, was convicted after enemies. facilitating infiltration of the State Department - and the Muslim chaplain corps of the military, And many still remember allegations that some where many of those approved by his FBI translators of Middle East languages organization are presumably still ensconced. cheered at their desks, when news came through that the World Trade Centre had been David Hossain Safavarian, high-level White struck on 9/11. House employee was sentenced for lying to investigators. It turned out he'd lobbied for Britain has fared no better Alamoudi. By 2007, UK government investigations aimed Faisal Gill was suspended from a senior top- at securing power, transport, water and other secret Homeland Security job for failing to sensitive infrastructure exposed serious reveal terrorist connections, notably to infiltration involving people of concern who Alamoudi. "may have become radicalised while already in employment, thus evading the strict vetting procedure for applicants for security-sensitive Senior Airman, USAF, and Guantanamo 7 interpreter, Ahmad Al-Halabi, was convicted in posts." Britain's Telegraph asserted that - "MI5 relation to classified documents. is understood to have unmasked al-Qaeda sympathisers who joined its ranks during a recruitment drive aimed at young British Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, Guantanamo civilian Muslims, following the London bombings," and Defence interpreter, convicted of lying to that London's renowned Metropolitan Police investigators and travelling to Cairo with were investigating several of its own officers,[ii] classified documents. following visits to Pakistan, a major terror source country. In fact, this past September, Sadeq Naji Ahmed of the USAF and columnist Melanie Phillips concluded with this Transportation Security Administration, praiser chilling thought: of bin Laden and 9/11 "martyrs". There are signs that Islamist thinking is Warith-Deen Umar, Federal Bureau of Prisons, infiltrating the police. Up to eight police officers praising the 9/11 assault. and civilian staff working in the Metropolitan Police and other forces have been reported as Dr. Esam Omeish,