He Joined The Taliban. Then Went UNDERCOVER To Fight Them

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
My guest was born and bred in Canada, but met
with the Taliban in Pakistan.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
It happens he was named.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
He joined the jihadists, but something happened, he woke up,
and then he went undercover for the good guys.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
You must hear his story and what he needs.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Every woke Western apologist for terrorists to hear. Watch movee
in Shake. Thank you so so much for joining us
here in the.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Aaron Mollin Show.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you for having Meren.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
You became an extremist, essentially a terrorist?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
How and why?

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah? When I was eighteen years old, I'm born and
raised in Toronto, Canada. I was growing up with an
identity crisis. I was going to Quran school. I was
going to public school, which one do I follow? Got
to high school, I had a house party. I got
caught at the house party. I panicked. I said I
need to get religious and I would end up traveling

(01:22):
to the tribal areas of Pakistan where I would meet
the Taliban and become completely enamored by them and start
to become a Jehadist.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
After that, what part of it appealed to?

Speaker 1 (01:35):
And I don't think there's anyone watching who can't relate
to having an identity crisis when they're young. Parents are
terrified about this sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
What was the glow for you?

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, I think ultimately, in hindsight, it's meaning belonging identity.
Sometimes you hear quests for significance. People want to be somebody,
and there's a lot of pressure on people to be
something in the Jihadis world. Their lure was that these
guys were the authentic representatives of you know, the prophets

(02:09):
peace to be upon him. They have their beers, their robes,
and it's like there, it's like you're teleported back to
the seven hundreds. And so it's that search and attempt
to obtain that authenticity that I am legit, I am
a true Muslim in this example, because that identity crisis

(02:31):
will manifest in different ways for different people depending on
which cultures they come from. So you'll get white kids
who become neo Nazis, white supremacists. You get black kids
in the US they'll join gangs, you know, So it'll
manifest according to the culture in which you're brought up.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
You make the teleiban, how does that actually happen? And
we're the parts of you that was nervous at that time.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Ye, it wasn't. It wasn't nerve because what had happened
is I had left after I got caught at this
house party by my uncle. My parents were out of
town and and so I was willing to throw myself
in full, full on. So when I went to this
the city called is Kueta Queta at that time and

(03:18):
even to this day especially now wasn't is a Taliban stronghold.
And so when we were walking in the local area,
I saw a bunch of guys who I thought, oh there,
let me just go and talk to them. And as
I came close, I realized, wait a second, these guys
have weapons in front of them, bearded, turban wearing, robe wearing,
and honestly, I wasn't nervous anxious whatever. I became enamored

(03:41):
by them. I fell into that mythology that a lot
of Muslims, unfortunately, or at least those who become extremists.
It's this mythology, this romanticized past of you know, the glorious,
the golden age of Islam, you know, which they're trying
to revive or reclaim because they feel they've lost that

(04:02):
glory and that honor.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Was it a sophisticated approach by them? And by that,
I don't mean that they used big words and had
PowerPoint presentations, But did it feel like they knew what
they were doing in terms of encouraging people to jump
on board with their objectives.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yes, it's good you said it that way about the
sophistication of slide decks and this, that and the other,
because when I was talking to them, the group that
I was with is a political they are fundamentalists, but
they're not violent at all. And so their invitation to
people was, you know, to succeed in this life and

(04:44):
the next lies in following the commandments of God as
shown by the prophet Peace be upon him. That was
the line that I gave them, and so he just
this is how he responded. He goes, well, if you
want to succeed in this life and the next, you
do it with this, and he picked up the AK
forty seven. And for a young Muslim male looking for
that sense of identity linking to sacred values, I don't

(05:08):
need a slide deck, I need that gun.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
And so how long then were you a part of that?

Speaker 1 (05:15):
And I know, but tell my audience the moment you went,
something is not right with this, just doesn't feel right.
It was a world event we still speak about today.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, yeah, especially coming up on the twenty five year anniversary.
In particular, I'll never forget that day. Of course. It
was Tuesday morning when I was driving to work. Now,
I had been an extremist, you know, for about five
six years by this time, and it's really the Salafist
interpretation of Islam that is really I'll say, it's like
a curse on the Muslim world. You know, this is

(05:47):
a movement that has appeared in the last two hundred years.
All these cycles that you see talking the way that
they talk. I'm by track what's happening in Australia. Recent
legal case about a solofist guy. All these guys that
you see talking online like this, very supremacist thinking, you know,
they bring Islam like it's something to beat you over

(06:07):
the head with, you know. And so I was this
is how I was. I was supremacist. And so when
the nine to eleven attacks happened, I thought to myself,
you know, this is I understand, you know, jihad and
like the war tradition of Islam, but flying planes into
buildings like I must have missed that in my reading
of the scriptures. And so that's what really made me think,

(06:30):
you know, there is something fundamentally wrong about this, because
and I had this conversation with myself that if I
could support an interpretation and it produces this, there's something
wrong in the way that I have come to understand
my religion.

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Speaker 3 (09:07):
Do it, And so I would then after nine love,
I would then go to Syria. Actually before the war,
so it's not crazy to say I went to Syria,
but many people went there to study Arabic and Islamic studies.
I was introduced to Sufism, which is like, we are
like the Jedi of the Muslim world. And in all
these Southern fee were Habis. They're like the Sith. Best

(09:29):
analogy I can give you, and that's what really started
to open my eyes to the reality before me.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
You were then recruited by the good guys, and I
say that very confidently. Some might disagree to go undercover
and fight the very evil that you were part of prior.
How did that happen? And wow, you can you can
attract them?

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Yeah? Well, I mean I don't know who would disagree
with that. And I get it, you know, we got haters.
We got haters. Yeah, I mean, you know, you have
the Australian Security Intelligence Service, we have the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service. The UK has its five. So it was
a domestic security intelligence service that ended up recruiting me

(10:16):
because I came back with a new founder appreciation for
the rights that we have in the West. I heard
the horror stories that happened to people in Syria. This
was under Basha Lassade and it was a real police
state where you would be disappeared if you said things.
But I had this new founder appreciation. I thought suddenly, hey,
maybe the Kofar Canada isn't so bad after all. So

(10:39):
I returned back, and actually the reason was the first
week that I got back, the first Canadian has been
had been arrested on terrorism charges post Anti Terrorism Act
of two thousand and one, following the nine eleven attacks.
And it was in the newspaper and I looked at
him and lo and behold it was a kid that
I went to Couran school with in my childhood. And

(11:02):
so I told I called, I saw a reference to
the service. I called them up and I said, hey,
I know this guy, and they said, oh, well, we
want to come and talk to you. And it was
very ethical the way in which they laid it out
to me. They're like, look, we're not here to chase
ghosts and put people who don't belong in investigations. They
told me, you know, don't falsify information, don't exaggerate, don't

(11:25):
try to wrap up people in investigations out of revenge.
So their ethics were top of the line, and so
I was like, yeah, where do I sign up? And
so yeah, I would end up conducting or being part
of numerous infiltration operations. It culminated in a big terrorism
case that happened in a two thousand and six called

(11:45):
the Toronto eighteen case.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Mobein just for those who aren't aware of this, just
just give us an overview of what you were involved
in for my audience of.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
What that was.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
So, I mean with the Intel Service was infiltrate operations,
which was of course getting close to people that were
targets of investigations by the service, attending you know, different events, conferences,
other places like that, where you know, we're people who
were up to no good. I mean, they made it
very clear there's protected legal speech, we're not we don't

(12:18):
care about if you have opinions about this or that
we care. When you start to put bombs together and
you want to blow people up and murder people, I
mean sorry, not even sorry. I'm Canadian. We're predisposed to
saying sorry all the time. But in this case, no sorry,
we were going to come after you. We're going to
stop you.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Well what do you make now that that's incredible?

Speaker 1 (12:42):
You went from being a part of something that wanted
to destroy lives and take lives to something that no
doubt saved countless lives.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
So that's incredible.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
What comes to mind when you watch people in the
West try and run cover from the ideology that does
want to in some ways, in many ways, weaponize Islam
and destroy the West.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, yeah, so I remember I moved from Sith to Jedi.
All Right, I'm sorry Star Wars. I don't want to
make any copyright violations, but this is a good point
because you do have an incredible level of denial I
think in Muslim communities. And the bigger problem is a
lot of these Muslim communities do come from a political

(13:29):
Islamist background. A lot of these organizations, major organizations, and
what's interesting is our you know, We've had Islamic scholars,
our Sufi scholars who were warning the West about this
pre nine eleven, pre nine eleven, saying that these Muslim
brotherhood groups, they are here to take make these organizations

(13:50):
have mosques come under their governance and influence, and you
can see what it produces at the end. They have
a very standoffish relationship with society. It's not about integrating
and being a neighbor. I mean, this is like a
basic belief in all our religious traditions, right, love your neighbor,

(14:11):
treat your neighbor as if you, you know, treat yourself,
you would want to be treated. These people, they have
this very separationist worldview where living in the West is
not I'm at home, it's it's in a field of operations.
It's a place for them to do their activities, to
do their fundraising, to do their lobbying, their politicking and

(14:33):
all of this. And it's it's unfortunate because at the
end of the day, you see that the actions, the
bad actions of Muslims is the root cause of Islamophobia.
When you have the selfist psycho talking the way that
they talk blatantly and openly in a society where you're
supposed to be living with everyone. You're scaring the people.

(14:55):
You are the one that's making Islam the threat to people.
You talk in this way, of course, people are going
to be hostile to Islam. So you want to cry
about Islamophobia, but you don't want to talk about the
root cause of that, which is the bad actions of Muslims.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
It's not even just if it were just the talk
that would be bad enough, but it's the putting into
actions of that talk that we are seeing repeatedly over
and over that that's not even an issue.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
That's not a strong enough word.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
I was at I was at a summit to counter
anti Semitism at the in the Gold Coast, I think
a month before the Bondai Beach attacks. That Khabad, the
rabbi who was killed, we spoke with him. He was
part of the group that we were there with. And
then to have seen what transpired afterwards, right, and so
so I'm I'm in Australia this week for the Royal

(15:49):
Commission on Anti Semitism and Social Cohesion. I'm giving my
expert evidence on de radicalization. That's going to be my
my area of discussion. But again, I've been tracking the
situation in Australia back in the ISIS days with College
Sharuf and all of those guys, and of course I've
been tracking the returneyes that have come back. So this

(16:13):
is a real issue for Western countries. It's even more
relevant for America because I worked extensively with the US
government special operations community, the Coalition Special operations community, primarily
in the US. I can still do a lot of
training in the US for law enforcement and for others.

(16:33):
In fact, in line with the de radicalization, there is
a Isis Retornee who's actually been de radicalized. It's true,
it can happen. I have been mentoring him for almost
two years now, so that's why I feel confident with him.
So there are things happening that people are not aware of.

(16:53):
And of course what you see in the US anti
Semitic attacks, attacks against all communities, it's not it is
definitely the Jewish community is facing it, you know, the
most and the worst. But I think it's just indicative
of what's happening in the rest of society because we
hear this a lot from the Jewish community that look,
when when Jews are attacked like this. It's not just

(17:14):
going to stop with the Jews, because that is a
level of hatred that once it consumes one target, it
will very quickly start looking for the next target. So
you can see that this division that's happening in society.
And that's why my my approach is really really the
one of peace, of Abrahamic unity. You know, we have

(17:35):
we share so many beliefs in common, whether it's the US, UK,
everywhere else. Look the most this is not a conspiracy theory.
This term civilizational jihad is not a conspiracy term that
was made by non Muslims. This is a term that
was written out by the Muslim Brotherhood. They use this term.

(17:57):
So when we say that, listen, yes, the the problem
of the Muslim Brotherhood is a real thing. It's not
a conspiracy theory. And I'm cooming. Maybe my bias is
that we come from a non political Islamist background. Maybe
that's the reason why. But everywhere you see these people
the Muslim Brotherhood when they were active in Muslim countries,

(18:20):
and now you see them when they're active in western countries,
in the US, in Canada, in Australia, in the UK
and other countries. In Europe. So it is a real threat.
It is something to be bothered about, and it remains
to be seen what we're actually going to do about it.
But we shouldn't fallen into the trap of, you know why,
brushing it all Muslims or all Jews or all whatever,

(18:43):
all Westerners, all Easterners. We need to identify who the
targets are and go after that. It's as simple as that.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Wellbean, you are phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Thank you so so much, and thank you for sharing
your story, and thank you for traveling to Australia as
well and doing such important work. And I thank you
again for extending that Australia is my favorite country in
the world.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
It's my home. I care more about Australia than anywhere else.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
But I also know how much we rely upon a
strong US as well for our prosperity, So it all matters.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
It all ties in.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
And thank you again for coming to Australia and doing
really important work.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah. Well, even though I'm Canadian, you know we all
belong to the Five Eyes.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, of course, yes, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
We're all part of the Five Eyes network where we
share intelligence and threats that we all face. And this
is one of those threats that we face, so thank
you for what you do as well. Aaronvearon Lash

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