TERRORIST RADICALIZATION

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Circle of Insight Foreign Affairs, where you
will receive a daily briefing on national security news from
around the world. Let's get started. Here's your host, doctor Carlos.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome everybody. We have a special guest today. The guest
is Moviing Shikh. He's got a great book. I highly
recommend you to read. It's called Undercovered Chihti Inside the
Taro Toronto eighteen all kind of inspired homegrown terrorism in
the West.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
He's a former extremist, so we're gonna find out how
that all started and how he got out of it.
Moving Shake is a courageous hero the wrisk it all
to go undercover to infiltrate, ultimately stop the tour Onto eighteen,
a group that plotted the storm the Canadian Parliament and
behead the Prime minister. In addition that, we're going to
try to explode bonds all around Toronto. Unfortunately, with the

(01:06):
arresting convictions of many, extremism in Canada did not disappear,
as in fact grown.

Speaker 5 (01:11):
In recent years. We're gonna find out a little bit
more about that movie. Shik was born and raised in Toronto, Canada.
Missed the twenty first century. He attended public school, but
at night his parents insisted he also attend the Islamic
madrasa movie joined the Canadian Army cadets did with a
lot of individuals will do unfortunately, drugs and sacks.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
And party like a lot of other adolescents.

Speaker 5 (01:34):
But you fit right in. So you fit right in.
Until he didn't. And I'm not gonna read anymore. I
think we've better let him explain this to us. All
being welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Hey, thanks for having me, sir.

Speaker 6 (01:48):
Yeah, what I'll do is I will explain a little
bit more of my personal story through the presentation. What
I'm gonna do is let me just share my screen
and do it this way, so you see you see
the screen?

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Right, Yeah? Perfect, yep, all right, great, let me just
get started. Is it okay?

Speaker 5 (02:11):
If people ask questions that you wanted to ask him after,
how do you want to handle it?

Speaker 6 (02:15):
Yeah, ask them after, just in case you know they don't,
I mean they're if they're if they're not addressed. During
the presentation, I'm gonna throw out a lot a lot
of information. And what I'll do is, uh, Carlos, I'll
make the slides available to you.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
I'll actually email this to you very much.

Speaker 6 (02:33):
Yeah, and that way, because the way I reference all
this stuff, you're gonna want to go back to some
of the slides and and go through the information, uh
and just kind of go down some rabbit holes as
you see fit.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
So you will you will see relevant.

Speaker 6 (02:51):
So don't don't worry everybody, uh if I do kind
of go through it quickly or just kind of make
a passing reference to slide I at least what I'll
do is I'll intro you to the information and then
that will guide you as to you know, what you
want to what you feel you need to do with it.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
So let's do that.

Speaker 6 (03:13):
I just want to see that video, okay, all right,
So you see the.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Main slide I have there and what I usually do, so.

Speaker 6 (03:24):
I do a lot of training for the US military,
and this is actually the same presentation that I give them.
It's a shorter version of it, but you'll get pretty
much the same goods that that PAY do. So what
I'm gonna do first is kind of start the presentation
with the title of the title itself. The way I

(03:45):
framed it here is I say terrorism in Islamic costume. Now,
I personally, I personally don't like the term radical Islamic
terrorism because it uses the word Islamic as an adjective,
which implies it's allowed that.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
That terrorism is allowed in this climate. I reject that notion.

Speaker 6 (04:06):
But because the adversary appeals to the Islamic sources, you
have to put Islamic, you know, in some way, otherwise
you're being dishonest. Right, So what I put here is
terrorism in Islamic costume, all right, and I do believe
it's the the modern counter terrorism challenge.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
That we face.

Speaker 6 (04:28):
So the next slide, as you see here, what I'm
gonna do I normally is I jump into the discussion
on radicalization. And this is great that it's a psychology class.
I actually started a PhD in psychology and then quit
because I realized it was a waste of my time
and I already knew everything, so you know.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
So what.

Speaker 6 (04:56):
Okay, So basically what I say is radicalization is a
normal psychological process whereby individuals become increasingly extreme in their views. Okay,
And I highlight those three words normal, psychological and process
because you know, I don't want I mean, you know this,

(05:17):
I hope will give you a more nuanced understanding. Obviously
you are graduate students, so you know to kind of
look a little bit deeper into what you know you're
faced with. But unfortunately a lot of people have a
very misinformed view.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
So so it's.

Speaker 6 (05:33):
Normal, I mean, it happens, I mean across the board,
doesn't matter your background, your gender. It is psychological primarily,
so it's you know, it deals with how human beings
process ideas, you know, formulate responses, you know, to stimuli
around them and so on and process. I mean, it
is a it's a long it's a long activity, right,

(05:57):
it's taken over. It's a longitudinal activity that takes place
over you know, a significant or maybe short amount of time.
Violent radicalization is of course the psychological process by which
people become increasingly extreme in their views and which ends
in violence. Okay, so just to kind of you know,

(06:21):
mark those two points.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
So here this is my very.

Speaker 6 (06:25):
Simple model, and I mean, I hope you appreciate the
psychological discussion here of nature versus nurture, right, very basic
idea that we all understand.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Right.

Speaker 6 (06:37):
What I normally say in this piece is the nature
part is where you know where you might find let's
say psychopathy, right, these are things where an individual is
born with these issues nature of course, so we know sociopathy.
So a sociopath is created right by the environmental factor,

(07:00):
trauma and so on.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
They're not born that way.

Speaker 6 (07:03):
So we look at we just acknowledge here point, you know,
the baseline point here is nature versus nurture produces you know, personalities.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
So of course we have personality traits that are.

Speaker 6 (07:15):
Inherited from our from our parents and you know, and
whoever's in our gene pool.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
But then there are there are.

Speaker 6 (07:23):
Unique aspects of it that develop based on our upbringing,
right on what we're what we experience, what we are
passively taught, what we're actively taught and so on. Now
you know, basically when I put your cognitive framing, you
understand this. So why I put here including ideology is
because I usually ask.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Or I put out to the class.

Speaker 6 (07:46):
Imagine a kid who goes to the Bible school, you know,
from the age of five, or somebody who goes to
Quran school from the age of five, How what is
the world.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
View going to be like when they're fifteen?

Speaker 6 (07:59):
Right, if their formative years have been spent in the
in this environment, you can imagine what you know, their
their pubescent outlook is gonna is gonna be.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
So this is where I list those five points here.

Speaker 6 (08:13):
This is basically to mark where a person becomes ubscent,
becomes aware of the world around them. So, uh, you know,
the geopolitics, for example, the wars that are happening in
the world. You know, is your group or your you know,
religious or racial group.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Are they the aggressors? Are they the victims?

Speaker 6 (08:33):
Number two deprivation frustration pretty self explanatory. I mean, when
you're deprived of something, you will generate feelings of frustration
and then grievances develop as a result of that.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Number three conflicts over meaning and identity.

Speaker 6 (08:47):
Again, this is something that cuts across culture, gender, race, religion,
you name it for adventure, right. And five money And
why I put money is because I don't want to
give the impression that, you know, like I'm trying to
teach you not to be equivocal and say poverty causes
terrorism or poverty does not cause terrorism. You have to

(09:12):
look at each case, you know, a case by case,
on a case by case basis. Right, for one individual,
it could be about money and that there's no link
to ideology at all.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
In other cases, it could be a bit of both.

Speaker 6 (09:26):
Right, So now what I'm so, Now, what happens is
when these things become active in a person, they seek
to manifest their their frustration or whatever it is through
some kind of social movement.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Right.

Speaker 6 (09:41):
They either do it by joining as an individual or
by joining a group. And of course you should be
aware as psych students, right, the whole group dynamics. Right,
there's a whole discussion on group dynamics and how individuals
you know, who would not normally do things on their
own own, would do things as a member of a

(10:02):
group because of the various mechanisms of psychological pressure that's
exerted on them because of membership in the group, right,
and the dynamics of interactions between individuals in grouping and
out grouping, group polarization.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
All that stuff you can kind of shove in that box.

Speaker 6 (10:21):
Now at this stage, the vast majority of radicalized individuals,
this is where it ends. Right, They don't become violent,
but for those that do go over into the next
to the next step of actually violence. I put here
five observable traits. I don't really go into why they

(10:41):
do that. I have some theories as to why, but
I just didn't do that here because I wanted this essentially,
when I give this to practitioners, I don't want this
to be so theory heavy. This is something that they
can look at and say, oh, okay, I can see,
you know. Number one, somebody making a jihadi video, right,
or some kind of you know, calling for group action

(11:03):
or some kind of self made propaganda. Number two is basically,
excuse me, how secret is the group?

Speaker 3 (11:11):
Right?

Speaker 6 (11:12):
I've put I put it here, intensity of exclusivity, right,
but basically, how secret are they and what are they
up to?

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Three?

Speaker 6 (11:20):
Contact with known violence extremists, because you know, you are
the company you keep. And it goes back to the
group group dynamics again because when you're hanging around these
sorts of people, obviously you're going to be very vulnerable
now to being sucked into violent action. Number four is
the online component, if you will, so like searching online,

(11:42):
trying to find how to make bombs, how to where
can I go on a paint, travel training, and so on.
And number five is recruiting others because you know, the
more you talk about these things, the more you internalize it,
and then.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
That might move you to action.

Speaker 6 (11:58):
So rather than you know, portray this as like a
neat and tidy process, those stars up there, basically, you know,
are there to illustrate how a person goes from the
first stage all the way to the third stage. So
you know, let's use an easy example. It's a military force.
You bomb this family, killing everybody. There's no ideology, there's

(12:19):
no conflicts of remaning and identity. You kill the family, right,
So it's a straight revenge motive. Or somebody who has
joined a group, some kind of protest movement, but finds
that the protest movement is not giving getting the results
that they want to see, right, which is usually right
now or overnight, and then.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
So they say screw it and then they go into
violent action. All right.

Speaker 6 (12:40):
So that's my little model. This, This is an example
these models, you see them here, right, Yes, So it's
a chronological basically timeline summary.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Right. You can see from two thousand and three and
onwards of all the different models that are out there.

Speaker 6 (13:01):
And this is what if you're if you're wanting to
study that topic.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
These are like core texts that you would want to access. So,
I mean, I know there's a lot here that slides
will be available.

Speaker 6 (13:12):
But look at Boram two thousand and three, right, the
first one, Randy Borum. Look at how he writes it
out right, The stages are factors. So there's one, two, three, four.
But let me put it this way. It's not right,
it's not fair. It's your fault.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
You're evil.

Speaker 6 (13:33):
Right, It's a very simplistic way of seeing how that
process developed.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Okay, so you can, you know, look through it later.

Speaker 6 (13:41):
The only thing I'll note here is you'll notice nypds
the only linear model. The linear model is obsolete and
like defunct. Nobody really subscribes to that in in in
the nuanced understanding of radicalization. Here, they were just trying to,
you know, identify some stages which were you know, highly

(14:03):
defined as they saw it, but they're still very vague, right,
Like what's pre radicalization?

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Right?

Speaker 6 (14:09):
Like it technically it starts when you're born, right, So,
and it's deliberately vague, right, And they weren't really doing
this to you know, be be comprehensive. And again it's
two thousand and seven. It of course, you know, fell
into disuse because there's so much new material.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
That's out there now.

Speaker 6 (14:29):
But I'm gonna give you two images to kind of
show you the Really, what I'm trying to reinforce here
is how different factors, you know, interact with each other
producing this particular phenomenon. Right, So let's look at ideology
and grievances right in this sense, in this circle model
we'll call it.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
So you have. So there's a great.

Speaker 6 (14:51):
Quote by Peter Neuman his his images next, but it
goes ideology without grievances doesn't resonate, and grievance without ideology
are not acted upon.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
Okay, Ideology without grievances.

Speaker 6 (15:05):
Doesn't resonate, doesn't make sense, doesn't appeal to you, and
grievances without ideology are not acted upon because ideology is
not just believe, it's action enabling ideas. That what it's,
you know, what you need to do about this grievance
that you're facing. Okay, So there's an interplay between the two.

(15:27):
And then if you look at the top and bottom
personal so personal when we say mental illness, and I
always say and you guys will definitely appreciate this, mental
illness is a is a obviously it's a spectrum of behavior.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
Right.

Speaker 6 (15:39):
I mean we can say on the extreme end of
the spectrum will put mental diseases like schizophrenia and so on, right,
And that's at the extreme end, you know, especially we're
trying to establish a spectrum here. And then let's say,
on the most benign end, it might just be somebody
who has you know, we might call it a bad
attitude good. I mean, it's it's it's not a it.

(16:03):
There's nothing diagnosed, there's nothing that impacts them, you know,
in any significant way on a day in a day
to day basis. But you know, the guy's got or whatever,
they have an attitude problem. It's like there's something that
they have issues with in their personal dealings with people.
But it's very benign, right, So I'm going to establish

(16:23):
that on the other end of the spectrum, and then
in the middle.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
We will have people who have and you can fill
the spectrum as you like.

Speaker 6 (16:33):
I mean, let's look at I went down some rabbit holes, man,
So I mean you can look at decision making theory, right,
rational choice theory, and looking at how psychological issues affect that,
how medical issues affect that, how other environmental issues would

(16:53):
affect a person's decision making right, And you know, I
don't know if you'd call it a mental Oh, this
per se. But I always give this example, you know,
in in Canada, we had, you know, we had an
attack on the Parliament building by a guy who was
never involved in any you know, Islamist cause he was

(17:15):
like a long time drug user, right, and he was
in and out of prison, and you know, finally he
got out of prison and then decides, you know, he
puts it on a you know, video and says, I'm
doing this for the brothers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
You know, he he's he basically.

Speaker 6 (17:34):
Runs into Parliament building with a bolt action hunting rifle
and starts a shootout in the parliament in the halls
of Parliament building. Now, is this guy a terrorist or
is he mentally ill? Are those two things necessarily mutually exclusive?

Speaker 3 (17:50):
Right? So the answer is no.

Speaker 6 (17:52):
But but these these are the kinds of questions that
you would want to ask yourself when because all too
often we hear, oh, an attack happened, Oh he's mentally ill.
Well what does that mean? Is it something that they
were diagnosed with? Okay, what is it that they were
diagnosed with? So we had a recent case a hammer
attacked in Toronto just last week with a guy, really

(18:15):
weird Muslim guy. Yeah, but you know, you know, you know,
Hammer attacked this this older Asian lady and then turns
himself into the police, claims he has a fake suicide
best and then the parents said that, oh, he was
diagnosed ADHD in obsessive compulsive disorder. Okay, well doesn't ADHD

(18:37):
and an obsessive compulsive disorder diagnosis mean this person it
has no agency when it comes to committing an attack.
That's done for the purpose of a terrorist group, right,
So it's to show you that it does get you know,
grey at times. It's always going to be great. So
I just wanted to put that out there. And then finally,

(19:00):
the mobilizers aspect, that's you know, the radicals are your
charismatic creatures like individuals who move people to action.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
And then social.

Speaker 6 (19:08):
Groups is basically how group dynamics move people to action.
Just just reinforcing that group dynamics angle there. And then
finally we'll call this the star model. And you can
see I love this model personally. It really does like
touch on everything. But you can see it in the
key points. You know, it's a process. There's no single

(19:29):
driver factor or formula, and each factor's relative importance differs
according to context.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
In the individual. Right.

Speaker 6 (19:36):
So obviously, when you're looking at a kid coming from
a second generation in a diaspora community, living in a
middle class neighborhood, you know that's going to be very
different from let's say another Muslim kid living in the
US but in another place, maybe even still middle class,

(19:56):
but their experiences are totally different, right, And so gain
to reinforce how different factors will you know, play on
an individual in different ways?

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Right?

Speaker 6 (20:07):
And psychologists, psychiatrist therapists have always tried to look into well,
what is it that you know a person or or
a number of people are in seemingly the same demographic,
but yet they respond to the same stimuli in a
different way.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
Right?

Speaker 6 (20:23):
And I mean, honestly, I don't think you can ever
find the answer to that because we are we are
so highly individualized that you know, what is true for one.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Is not going to be true for another. Right.

Speaker 6 (20:36):
So, now what I do here is I put myself
through that model and in my nature and nurture, I
talk about me going to that Qoran school from the
age of five. Right, you know, you get you get
beat up if you weren't reading it correctly. You know,
boys on rocking back and forth on wooden benches not
understanding what we're reading.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
Juxtapose out with public school.

Speaker 6 (20:58):
And there I am in the front and center, front row,
right behind the uh the uh you know, the little
black there with the blue jacket in my hands, in
my lap, nice flared collars.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
You know, I got the bro cream hair. So this is.

Speaker 6 (21:15):
So this is a complete opposite, right, I mean mix
a carrying, nurturing environment, boys and girls mixing. Look at
the diversity of that classroom, right, So this starts to
lay the foundation for an identity crisis that would hit
me later on in my life. And so just when
I got to high school, I joined the Army Cadets.
And so these are my two older kids who were

(21:36):
in the cadets as well.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (21:39):
And why I highlight this is because with the Army
Cadets and you guys in the US, you called this
a junior rotc program uh and you know, for kids
and basically to indoctrinate sorry, introduced them.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Haha, to you know, to the military. Uh.

Speaker 6 (21:57):
And so this comes with it a new value system
as far as I'm concerned, and a new peer group.
And this is where I would say the adventurism was
really developed inside.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
You know, I'm in high school. So I'm at the.

Speaker 6 (22:12):
On the left there next to that white and black logo.
I got the black hoodie there and the tan corduroy pants.
And this is us in high school. This is these
are my friends. They had a metal band and and
I wasn't bullied. I wasn't picked on. I wasn't the
victim of racism. We were the cool kids of school.

(22:37):
Now what happened is I got this brilliant idea that
I would have a house party while my parents were
out of town. And in the middle of the party,
my uncle walked in and lost his mind and basically
shamed me, and guilt tripped me into thinking that what
I had done was so bad that the only way
I was gonna salvage my reputation was to go away

(23:00):
and get religious. So in nineteen ninety five, okay, back
when there were dinosaurs, I joined the Tabligue Jamat Can
you see me highlight that?

Speaker 3 (23:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (23:13):
Okay, And I went to Indian and Pakistan and I
would actually have a chance in counter at the Taliban.
So you notice I'm following the five points that I
showed in my first column, and I'm showing you know,
two out of five are active in me. I join
a group called the Tiveleague Jamat, and I meet these

(23:35):
guys and I become enamored by Right, I'm this young
Muslim kid looking for a new identity that resonates with
my sacred values, something that matches the adventurism and the
militancy that I've been exposed to.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
And these guys are it. So as I.

Speaker 6 (23:53):
Talk to them a bit more, I become aware of
the geopolitics that are happening. I develop what's called vicarious deprivation.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
All right, so you know what that is.

Speaker 6 (24:05):
This is when if I'm watching a video of quote
unquote my people suffering in a particular place, I start
to feel that I am suffering, okay, and I'm feeling
that through their suffering, so vicarious suffering. And now I
have four out of five factors that are active. Now

(24:29):
what happens is I left the Tabliga Jamat and I
joined a loose knit group again of wahab like Selephist individual.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
And for them, it was all about the great Jihad.

Speaker 6 (24:42):
It's all about your Muslim identity is filtered through the
prism of being a fighter, being ready to use violence
for the furtherance of your objectives and goal. So by
nineteen ninety five, again you know, I came back, the
Taliban took over. By ninety six, the Russians went into Chechnya,

(25:04):
and I was always looking to go to Chechnia to
fight as a foreign fighter. By the two thousand's second,
in defa that kicks off in Israel, and this is
a new grievance, you know, discussion for us to add
into our mix.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
And basically this is why we got to hate the Jews, right.

Speaker 6 (25:26):
And then finally, so now what's happened is I've come
right on the line. Right, I'm showing three out of
the five behavioral traits of those who do engage in violence. Right,
I haven't broken the law, but I'm on the verge. Okay,
nine to eleven happens, and I think to myself, hold

(25:48):
on a minute, you know, flying planes into buildings, this
just doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
So I decide that I need to study my religion. Property.
I didn't know Arabic, I didn't.

Speaker 6 (26:02):
You know the various topics in Islamic studies. And so
when I got to Syria, now I'll be honest, I
did go with the with the with the idea that
if the Great War kicked off in Syria, I would
be there and I would be a part of it.
And while I was there, the Iraq War kicked off

(26:23):
and the Syrian regime was actually sending people over to fight.
There were air conditioned buses ready to take people, and
I even got invited to go, but thank god I
didn't go. I really was there primarily to study. And
what happened is basically the scholars debunked my extremist interpretations

(26:44):
that I was still clinging onto. So when I put
here a theological reframing, reframing is really from social work,
but it's basically the idea.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
I mean, it's I think it's obvious.

Speaker 6 (26:57):
But again it's cognitive restructuring right the way in which
I mean, again, this is like a significant human investment,
So it's epistemological even I mean, the very sources of
knowledge that you're using were now up for discussion, right.
So for me in this context, it was going to

(27:19):
the Quran, going to the prophetic tradition and debunking these
interpretations that these so called jihadists subscribed to. I became
disillusioned while I was there in that I had this
very highly abstract pie in the sky view, and now
I became very pragmatic, like steak on my plate view.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
Right.

Speaker 6 (27:44):
I realized while I was there that it was a
real police state that I was living in, right, and
so of course I developed the newfound appreciation for rights
that Muslims had in the West.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
I got fed up. I came back, and I.

Speaker 6 (27:59):
Would end up becoming what's called the walk in for
the Canadin Security Intelligence Service. Now that guy that picture
there of that guy, that's Moman Kuwaja, All right, Moman Kuwaja.
So this is what happens. I come back to Canada
in two thousand and four. The first week that I'm back,
front page of the paper, Moman Kuaja has been arrested

(28:23):
on terrorism charging, the first Canadian to be arrested under.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Post nine to eleven terrorism law.

Speaker 6 (28:33):
Excuse me, uh so, Moman Kuwaja sat beside me in
the Quran school I went to as a kid.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
He was my friend. We used to play hot wheels
cars together.

Speaker 6 (28:47):
So I would actually end up calling the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service and saying, hey, uh, you have this guy,
I know him, I know the family.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
This must be a mistake.

Speaker 6 (29:00):
Now, unbeknownst to me, I didn't understand how the mandates
of these agencies worked. In the US, the FBI does
both the security intelligence component and the federal policing component.
In Canada, it's split between these two services. And well,
the Canadian the Security Intelligence Service and then the Police Service. Right,

(29:22):
So the Intelligence Service collects intelligence and for you guys
very quickly think about information plus value equals intelligence, all right.
And the police they collect evidence, right, which is publicly
available in court, disclosed to the defense counsel, so on

(29:46):
and so forth. So it's kind of important to understand
the differences in what they do. So what I will
say is, for a while I worked undercover with the service,
doing human infiltration operations and online infiltration operations. So this
is before Facebook, Twitter, this is when social media was

(30:06):
still very rudimentary. You had you know, just you know,
chat forums, password protection chat forums. You needed to get
into the human network for them to give you the
password on a piece of paper for you to then
be able to log into that whatever.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
So so that's what I was doing in that time.

Speaker 6 (30:28):
I won't go into the details of the case that
I got involved in too much, like I will have
some slides, but basically just want to say that, oh yeah,
this is fine.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
I can jump here.

Speaker 6 (30:39):
So if you see on the left side Canada Flag
the Toronto Plotters, and so that was the group that
I worked on. You'll see you can see obviously from
this link analysis chart how this investigation tentacled out into
an international one. And you know, once if you want
to go down the rabbit hole of each of these cases,

(31:01):
you can do that. They're they're extremely interesting, and I
mean what it basically ended up happening was you could
see here now look at the date two thousand and five.
I was sent in to infiltrate the group in November,
late November, like the first day was November twenty fifth,
two thousand and five. These guys were already in play

(31:22):
before I was sent in. All right, So it's very
because I mean, don't fall into the trap that a
lot of people do where they think that the mere
presence of an undercover equals entrapment. You know, I personally
believe like entrapment is thrown out as a label because
people don't want to deal with the reality of people getting.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Hought for doing bad things.

Speaker 6 (31:47):
Right, I will I acknowledge that, you know, let me say,
how do I do this diplomatically?

Speaker 3 (31:54):
I believe that sometimes.

Speaker 6 (31:56):
Certain US agencies could be over zen Ellis in their attempt,
in their attempt, and sometimes sometimes there are cases where
people there's some dirty tactics that are used. And I
want to kind of note this to for the backdrop,
because remember, there is no way, because we believe in

(32:21):
an open society where you have to gather evidence and
that evidence has to be tested in a court of law,
you cannot gather evidence of covert criminal wrongdoing except by
covert collection. Collection means there's just no other way to
do it, whether it's biker gangs, you know, mafia groups,

(32:47):
other gangs, terrorist groups, you know, pretending that Officer Lucy
is little Lucy who's nine years old on social media
and you got sucked in thinking you're talking to little Lucy.
But oh, you know, the FBI are now at your
house because you're actually a pedophile and you got caught.

(33:07):
So it's a dirty business. I mean, this is not
for boy Scouts to be doing, you know, you're dealing
with people who are bad people. But again, I don't
want to make it so simplistic because you're a psychology class.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Let's kind of put aside the you know.

Speaker 6 (33:23):
Law enforcement bias here for a moment and look at
the psychological issues or the backgrounds of people. Right, what
you would call a situational attribution as to why this
kid ended up where they ended up.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
Right, So there's room for both things.

Speaker 6 (33:41):
So I talk about the tactical side of things that yes,
this was a sting operation. They thought they were dealing
with a like minded plotter, but in fact I was
the agent, and this is the only way that you
collect evidence for criminal wrongdoing I do. You know, Look,
I'll be honest. I feel sorry for a lot of

(34:02):
these guys. You know, I definitely could have been one
of these guys easily. I just didn't escalate, right, I
didn't keep going forward and moved towards action. And these
guys all got you know, they all got caught because
they moved forwards from Miladi.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
So moving on. This is just the books.

Speaker 6 (34:24):
So this is just my slide to say I was
doing other stuff, blah blah blah. This is an example
of one of the targets that we dealt with. I mean,
you can see the timestamp, December two thousand and five.
This is in the middle of winter in Canada, and
this guy's camping out in his car. Right, he's got
his maps down there. You see all that you see

(34:46):
these are sticky notes that he had that we got
pictures of. So look at this he's got, you know,
in box number four there he's got all the five
daily prayers and then next to it, he's got the
five different mosques where he's gonna go to recruit more
young people to his cause.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
And you see the stuff at the bottom right.

Speaker 6 (35:05):
Don't tell them anything, Just give them jihadi Daowa, meaning
like the the ideological components of why we need to
fight the West.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Give a false name. Keep them on the d L.
The plan is simple.

Speaker 6 (35:20):
Three one ton ammonium nitrate truck bombs. And bottom left
is what the Murrah building looked like. That's Oklahoma City
after an anti government group.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
That's what a one ton of moneym nitrate truck bomb does.

Speaker 6 (35:35):
And these guys plan three of them in three different locations,
you know, at rush hour, so that they could kill
as many people as possible. Because the street that they
wanted to put the one truck on where the intelligence
agency was. Underneath that there is a you know, pathways

(35:56):
that people you know, you know that people can walk
back and forth from subway station to their offices or whatever.
So it would have killed thousands of people if it
had gone off at that time like they wanted. The
plan was simple, obtain the material, pay for it and get.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
These guys, the two there, to drive it onto location
and have them blow off.

Speaker 6 (36:23):
So target number two, Zakaria Amara, these were the goods
that were seized in the raid against him. He basically
had made this bomb detonator. They brought in what they
thought was ammonium nitrate. Now look at the irony here
again that morning Kuwaja bomb plot of two thousand and
four that prompted my involvement with the Service to begin with.

(36:46):
They specifically discussed that case and learned from it. Because
once again we live in a public, you know, open society.
Once these things come into court, the details of what
the police have done now become available, right and so
now the criminals learn from that and adapt accordingly. Right

(37:07):
So here because in the London case they switched the
materials on them. So here they put candlelights on the
storage unit. So finally they were arrested. Two thousand and five,
they were arrested. There was now five legal hearings that
would take place over four years, in which I was

(37:29):
the main fact witness. In twenty ten, the cases were
over and I got onto social media. I became like
a public person and I got onto social media, and surprise, surprise, isis.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Ope there about that?

Speaker 6 (37:54):
So what I'm gonna do from here is I'm going
to now move into this ISIS presentation.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
And let me just see here, all right.

Speaker 6 (38:04):
So I'm basically doing this almost chronologically, right like my
involvement in two thousand and five, well two thousand and
four with the service, this big terrorism case that happened
in two thousand and six, four.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Years of court.

Speaker 6 (38:20):
And then finally going on to social media and seeing
all this talk about the great jihad that's happening in Syria.
So I got all I got all over social media
and started to see this stuff.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
So here is.

Speaker 6 (38:35):
Basically an isis. This is actually before they declared their caliphate,
by the way, and so here they're saying the big
text here says.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
The right at the bottom of these three things.

Speaker 6 (38:47):
Al jahad is what it says, and then the white
at the bottom it says love who's chuck lun Aha.
Reading right to left, you can see those are three
words love who shaklun Acha dot dot dot on mohi
a la tatro mechanic.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
So it says you're jihad. It has different forms.

Speaker 6 (39:06):
The important thing is that you don't leave out your
place in it. So if your tech support the USB,
if you're doing media stuff, or if you're the trigger person, there's.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Room for you. Now I'll do that, all right.

Speaker 6 (39:24):
So here's the quick little imagery right of the flash
in the planet, of the flash in the pan that was.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Is it all right? So you can see.

Speaker 6 (39:36):
From twenty fourteen. Now if you compare so by twenty fourteen,
the main isis attacks start to happen. By twenty fifteen
it goes even higher. Sixteen is even higher than fifteen.
Seventeen is even higher than sixteen. But if you were
to look at this slide, if you put underneath fifteen

(39:59):
six in seventeen, you know, brackets showing coalition bombings, you'll
understand why by February twenty eighteen there wasn't much left
devices because they got they got blasted hard.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
In this time.

Speaker 6 (40:13):
All right, So here is Twitter. These are tweets that
I captured during this time using one second, I'm gonna
cough my pudding, all right, So here is Now this

(40:35):
is kind of weird because HSM is hadakat a saab
a mujahideen. Now Shabab is an al Qaeda group. So
why is an ISIS flag on a Shabbab account? Well,
this is because at this time ISIS was of course
muscling into Al Kai the territory and trying to assert
its dominance over them. And so they would do this,

(40:56):
they would hijack some of their their brand names, so
had to at the shabbaal Mujahadin uh to try to,
you know, subsume them under the ISIS label. Al Kaida
and ISIS of course are at odds with each other.
They do have tactical alliances now and again here and there,
but they are adversaries as far as they're concerned.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
Pro at the purpose.

Speaker 6 (41:18):
But they're telling you, right, it's not how many people
are killed, it's how many people are watching, right, because
terrorism is theater, right Uh.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
Jumping to the next slide.

Speaker 6 (41:30):
These are excerpts taken from ask dot FM, a platform
on which you know, you could ask these people who
are over there, what kind of phone should I bring?
If I don't have if I join ices, do I
have to wait? Or can I be sent to a
battle right away? So they tell you, right, bring this
kind of phone. Weapon is free. Blah blah blah blah uh.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Even those who were married.

Speaker 6 (41:57):
And if we wanted to bring our family members over,
you know, what are the best routes to travel? And
and this is of course addressed to those who are
in Britain primarily, but also other countries in Europe. And
because they're all I mean, it's all land connected, these
individuals could just it was easier.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
For them to go and join up right.

Speaker 6 (42:18):
And a very very important question here are they good
looking women?

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Right?

Speaker 6 (42:24):
And you know, and don't worry, ladies, I have something
for you as well later on in the slides. But
you know, this is it's to laugh at, because it's
it's to really show you that you're dealing in some
cases really young immature men who you know, I'm not
gonna say, let me invoke like in cell for a

(42:45):
moment here, because you are talking about young males who
are very sexually frustrated and uh and and this is
why they ask questions like this, right, because when they're
living in a society where they feel they can't even interact.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
With members of the opposite sex.

Speaker 6 (43:02):
How do you survive when you're a young person and
you live in like such a hyper sexualized society.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Like we live in, right, Like you know.

Speaker 6 (43:09):
So anyways, these are some of the profiles from Twitter,
just to show you. And you can see it says
follows you, right, So these are people who were following me, right,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
Here are two guys.

Speaker 6 (43:22):
One guy is from like it shows you in Syria, right.
If you know who I am, don't tell me here.
You know, radical Islamist, you know you know this is
like your fascist, you know, Muslim supremacist basically right now,
In addition to all this, I started to see whoo
pictures being put up. So here's a Swedish form fighter

(43:46):
posting Swedish gummy bears right here is now a muhajir
is actually a Canadian guy.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
He's dead now.

Speaker 6 (43:58):
But that's what happens when you you on isis got
that kids don't be joining?

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Isis? So what he's yeah, what he's doing here.

Speaker 6 (44:08):
Is he's basically putting out this to show that, hey,
don't worry if you're worried about the kind of food
that you're eating in.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
Britain, we have it here, right. Notice the pepsi can
and you got the kababs, right.

Speaker 6 (44:22):
But in the land of pepsi, colchis king, right, and
you see what they're doing. This is popular culture warfare, right,
narrative warfare.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
Right.

Speaker 6 (44:33):
You'll see what I'm talking about in a few slides.
So this is just him taking pictures of nice food.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Right.

Speaker 6 (44:40):
You got your four basic food groups even, right, I
mean look look in the middle, you got Starbucks, Proppacino, right,
So they were basically depicting this.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
Really nice life that you could live here.

Speaker 6 (44:55):
This is my favorite because it's an Indo Pakistani from
Britain in Syria referring to pizza as home food.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
Right.

Speaker 6 (45:07):
And then finally, Gee Hotti CAATs right, And you understand
what's happening here because think about our approach to cat videos,
cat memes, right, So they're playing along, right, this is
what we would call in the military side, we would

(45:28):
call this narrative warfare.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Right.

Speaker 6 (45:31):
But of course they're also showing off their bomb making skills.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
Right. They're also teasing see.

Speaker 6 (45:39):
So the UK is afraid I'm gonna come back with
the skills I've gained. Right, they're teaching people what kind
of knife you should use because the folding knife, the
mechanism is not reliable. The kitchen knife, it doesn't have
a handguard to protect your hand from the blade.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
So look, this is how they look how they think
these things through. Right. Look at the imagery where to
attack a person?

Speaker 6 (46:05):
Right, Obviously it's not good for let you know, knife attacks,
targets at the bottom, large groups not advised, right, But
I look at that right, Yeah, that's straight from the magazine.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (46:19):
But you know what I want to show here is
that how they think this through, right, since you're all
psych enthusiasts and truck attacks of course, so they're also
showing you what kind of vehicle, right, it should be
raised so you can drive up onto the curb, all
these sorts of things, right, all right, So here we go, ladies,

(46:47):
it's coming up. So you see these accounts, A caring
why for a mujai today and loving mother of the
mujaia tomorrow. So sweet, here we go, ladies. Had the
eye candy.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
Right, look at this.

Speaker 6 (47:04):
This is I mean, eye candy is the Western term, right,
we use that. And this is this is a you'll
notice the date March twenty fifteen. This is at the
height of all this stuff. And and this is because
this is a female Muslim who is living in the West,
who's consuming.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Western narratives, et cetera.

Speaker 6 (47:25):
But in my guess here is that this was a
girl who wasn't really allowed to get out of the house,
had no prospect of any kind of meaningful companionship because
in such closed societies, this girl.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
She can't go, you know, be forward and talk to
a guy. You know, Oh my god, what would people think?

Speaker 6 (47:49):
So the girl is living in her bedroom talking to
her gie howdie boyfriend online.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
Right, It's it was a way.

Speaker 6 (47:57):
It was a portal for them to kind of reach
out and also participate in this.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Right.

Speaker 6 (48:04):
I know, I'm sorry it's cut off at the top there,
but it says the love of Jihad till martyrdom do
us part? Right, how romantic and happy one day? Not
so happy the other day? Look happy one day, not
so happy the other day because yeah, you got killed.
But then I go into the child's soldiery right. And

(48:25):
this is normally, you know, for the military. So you know,
the images here are intended to be jarring for people
to and and I what I do is I tell
the military is that this is where you need to
really think about your policies and practices when it comes
to child soldiers. Obviously there's a you know, a whole

(48:46):
psychological component that goes into that. Uh, this is mostly
for social for special operations communities.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
But but look at this counter propaganda stuff. Right.

Speaker 6 (48:58):
So one of the things that the military still kind
of does, but I think it's kind of outdated with
the advent of technology, is they would drop these pamphlets
across or over a town, right basically if they wanted
to give their message to the residents they're in. So
here's an example of what the Pentagon was dropping, right,

(49:19):
Saying that look, don't join isis like just putting your
kids into a meat grinder. But look at their stuff
that they put out, right, So, you know, people are
so kind of reverse engineer this. People are not listening
to our grievances. We're going to take action by just
moving to what the violence. People with the worst past

(49:42):
create the best future. So this is why They like
to recruit from prison, right, people who have committed violence.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
I don't want some nerd who's.

Speaker 6 (49:50):
Gonna you know, you know, be abstract and theorize about
this and that Isis wasn't there to churn out Islamic scholars.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
They wanted, They wanted cannon thought it.

Speaker 6 (50:02):
They want people who can press a trigger or cut
somebody's head off, right, And so that's why you would
recruit from that pool of people.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
Let's jump to this one. You see this, we hear
and we obey.

Speaker 6 (50:16):
You recognize that that's from what video game call of duty?
Because this is our call of duty, right, understand that
narrative that they have of we have a duty to
Islam to defend it, and that means using violence.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
And furtherance of our objectives.

Speaker 6 (50:37):
So now I'm gonna kind of bring it down, you know,
kind of let's kind of bring it down a bit, right.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
I've kind of brought it up to the Isis stuff
and all that.

Speaker 6 (50:48):
This is a wonderful share Mohammad Aliakubi looking at the
top left the text here. You know my message, you know,
it's a very good message, right, don't fall into this
trap they want to They actually want to provoke the
clash of civilization. They want Western governments to clash with
their Muslim populations, and they want the Muslim to clash
with their governments. Let's stay united, right, very nice now

(51:12):
refuting ISIS, and I really encourage that there isn't a
one hour long video on YouTube under this refuting ISIS
by Muhammad Ali Akobi. I submit to you it is
hands down the best response by the traditional Islamic community

(51:32):
of you know, the idea that isis is is acting
according to Islam. This debunks and rejects that argument completely.
And this is important why I said, from the beginning,
the adversary appeals to the Islamic sources and one has
to get an understanding of what it is that they're using.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
So he does that. He actually goes into the different.

Speaker 6 (51:56):
Arguments that they use from the religion to justify what
they're doing, and then he goes and debunks it.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
Right.

Speaker 6 (52:05):
So I think it is a very very important uh
important that you know, let's call it note in this
whole ISIS related discussion.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
I mean, it's just a fantastic lecture. I just love it.
Obviously I'm just singing its phrases. But on the right
side here.

Speaker 6 (52:23):
If you see the Arabic text, it's actually a futuah
against isis.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
H and it says a clear.

Speaker 7 (52:30):
Futtuaala b ethbati on the certainty that that is are
hawatage and hawattage is a technical Islamic term for terrorist
and palu humaji and and fighting them to kill them
is abligatory. So it's he basically put out a fatwa

(52:50):
against ISIS, all right, speaking of fatoast.

Speaker 6 (52:56):
Was put out on me because of the havoc that
I was wreaking in ISIS forums.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
So this is from Facebook.

Speaker 6 (53:04):
You can kind of text tell it from the text,
and they're basically warning people. And here's another example. I
would like to make the suggestion to you that you
blocked the guy named Mubing in shape. You know you
can search for him on the internet, right, And they
did this because you see the guy at the bottom there,
he's threatening to cut my head off. Now, my account

(53:26):
was called Caliphate Cow and it was basically to.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
Assert the role that the Jesus Caliphate was also coming.

Speaker 6 (53:39):
So this is a theological thing where you know, Muslims
and Christians we believe we differ. Obviously, what happened to
Jesus at the cross, but we agree that God raised
him alive.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
He remains with God in stasis and will return again
at a second coming.

Speaker 6 (53:57):
So what I did is I created this narrative of
the Jesus Caliphate because I knew that Isis was gonna
declare a caliphate. So I got ahead of the curve
and started this whole narrative. So you can see her,
I'm just trash talking him back. This is another guy
who's saying, you know, basically wants to cut my head off,

(54:18):
and unbeknownst to him, I have trained extensively in knife
fighting martial arts, and I would destroy him by whatever.
Now these so these are the series of let me
just show you like a few of them.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Right. This is a white girl from Seattle, Washington.

Speaker 6 (54:39):
You can read up on her by searching ISIS and
the Lonely Young American Isis and the Lonely Young American
And it's a New York Times article about her, and
I am referenced in that article because we you know,
got online. I got tagged into this conversation because she

(55:00):
was being groomed and lured over to Syria to be
an Isis pride, and so we go back and forth
and we're having these conversations.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Right.

Speaker 6 (55:13):
You know, I'm not gonna leave them up here because
you can go down the rabbit hole on your own.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
But basically.

Speaker 6 (55:19):
Some of the things that I was doing online at
this time, right, you can see the timestamp here twenty fifteen.
So here's on the Facebook page, you know, pages mocking
Isis group.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
So there's my little ponies and Teletubbi's right here. Now
what I do is I go into.

Speaker 6 (55:41):
You know, the to show people the difference between ISIS
and Islam. All right, uh, this is I like this
one because I framed this as you know, Isis as
in the greatest insider threat that Islam has faced in
a long time. You know, this is again Islam is
double submitting to God in prayer, and Isis is not.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Talking about rules of engagement.

Speaker 6 (56:05):
So I define jihad as the Islamic war tradition consisting
of rules of engagement. So terrorism is to jihad what
war crimes are to Roe's rules of engagement. So here
Abu Buka, the first Kleib of Islam, when he says
that you can't even burn trees, can you burn a human?

(56:30):
Being in a cage, as they did with that Jordanian pilot.
If they say here, if he says here, you will
pass by people you know who involve themselves in monastic services,
mong priests. Can you take a church hostage? Can you
bomb a church? Impossible? Right here is So now I'm

(56:54):
going to kind of go down the theological hole just
to reinforce the kawadage label, because I think people when
they think, you know, this isis is Islam, because Isis
comes in the wearing the costume of Islam, and so
people get fooled thinking that they are Islamic. But I'm

(57:15):
showing you here that in fact, the Islamic sources themselves
talk about these groups of people who would look. They say,
if they became powerful in Iraq or Syria, they would
execute everybody.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Here the prophet.

Speaker 6 (57:33):
Piece be upon him basically predicts the coming of Isis.
He points towards Iraq and he says from there, and
here is the common phrase that's used in all these reports.
They will recite the Quran, but it will not go
beyond their throat. So they will be known to quote
the Quran specifically, so we know that they will do

(57:56):
this right here there's another warning that you know, they're
an evil people. Even though they fast, they pray, they
strive hard, and worship right, but it's no benefit to them.
They falsify the meanings of the Quran, and they have
been warned against. Here's another one. There are many, and

(58:16):
I mean it's a little technical jargon here, but authentic narrations,
prophetic narrations concerning killing the Kalates. So blessedness Tuba is
for those who kill them or who are killed by them.

Speaker 3 (58:30):
They are the most evil of creation. The Coadas are
the dogs of hell. Fire to offense the dogs.

Speaker 6 (58:37):
Now and I'm kind of getting to the end of here,
have like a fusillized left and again you see here
at the top.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
They who recite the Quran.

Speaker 6 (58:47):
But third line there who recite the Quran, but it
does not go beyond their throats. He said this ten times,
and what does he say at the end, until from
their last remnants the Antichrist himself will emerge from this group.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
Here is uh the prophet.

Speaker 6 (59:04):
He's the upon him saying that the Antichrist shall appear
on the road between Iraq and Sham, spreading chaos and
corruption left and right, there's there's a road between Iraq
and Syria. In fact, I would submit to you that
there was no road. There was a giant dirt berm

(59:25):
because of Syke's Pico right, the Russian, French and British
divided up the spoils of the Ottoman Empire, and that
that that dirt Berm became the border. Well, here is
isis literally bulldozing the road between Iraq and Syria.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
So you do the math.

Speaker 6 (59:47):
I submit to you really, and I'm very you know,
I go down the pelogical rabbit hole a lot.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
I submit that they are the antichrist army.

Speaker 6 (59:57):
That were That's pretty much my presentation, but I wanted
to just reiterate those points that I think when it
comes to the Isis discussion most people. Okay, so that's
my presentation. I mean I did take up fifty five
minutes of your time.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Sorry about that.

Speaker 6 (01:00:13):
I did throw a lot of information, But if you
have time for questions, I mean, I'll take them.

Speaker 5 (01:00:21):
Thanks so much for me, and I truly appreciate your time, buddy.

Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
It was great to see you again. Yeah. Man,