Terrorism: “Canadians have always been at the heart of Islamic State propaganda”

Canadians are prized recruits from the Islamic State media arm (IS), which uses Canadian multiculturalism to recruit combatants.

• Read also: Terrorism: no prison for a Montrealer who had joined the Islamic State

• Read also: Investigation for terrorism: a man from Laval suspected of propaganda. However, recruitment for the Islamic State

“Canadians have always been at the heart of Islamic State propaganda,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, professor at the Queen’s University School.

He followed the writings of Sulaiman Dawood al-Kanadie on the internet. However, for months, identified in a court file consulted by our investigation office last week under the name of “Robert Floyd Rendall”, an alleged radical islamist of Laval.

The researcher points to four other Canadians who have been well-known IS-known voice. However, André Poulin. for example, published videos in which he praised the attack which killed two soldiers in 2014 in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, and the shooting in the Ottawa Parliament occurred two days later. He would have pushed five other Canadians to leave with him in Syria.

The terrorist organization finds that Canadians are particularly useful due to the opening image of Canada. a multicultural country perceived as free from racism, explains Mr. Amarasingam.

“By putting these men from the forefront. the organization wants to show that terrorism: “canadians have always been it is a great hypocrisy and that Islamophobia exists to the point that it pushes some to join the fight,” he said.

Propaganda is 50% of jihad

For IS. now its regional branch, the Islamic State in Khorassan (EI-K), for which Sulaiman Dawood al-Kanadie wrote, recruiting propagandists is as important as training combatants, underlines the researcher: “The media is 50% of jihad. It should therefore not be thought that it is a less important involvement ”.

However. he explains, it is difficult to have someone condemned for their writings, because freedom of expression is a fundamental right guaranteed by the charter and the line between freedom of expression and hate speech can be difficult to trace.

This is why the police place the propagandists that they catch under surveillance. deprive them of the Internet to put them out of harm to harm, the time to be able to bring charges.

terrorism: “canadians have always been

But it happens that they do not succeed quickly enough. In 2016. Aaron Driver was thus killed during an altercation with the police in Strathroy, Ontario, when he had just exploded a bomb in a taxi at rush hour and was about to detonate a second. A few months earlier, like Robert Floyd Rendall, he had committed to justice to keep peace.

Terrorism: &quot. canadians have always been – Terrorism: "canadians have always been

Four Canadian propagandists of the’Islamic State

-André Poulin, of Timmins, in Ontario: he called himself “Abu Muslim al-Kanadi”. He would have died in Syria.

-Farah Shrondon. of Calgary, in Alberta: was seen in a video burning his Canadian passport and saying for Canada and the United States: “We will destroy you in the name of God”.

-John McGuire. from Ottawa: was seen in a video where he described a typically Canadian adolescence to play hockey before calling for attacks in the country or terrorism: “canadians have always been joining IS in the Middle East.

-Abubakar Ridwan. Mohammed Khalifa, of Toronto: known to have been “the voice” of IS, is serving a life sentence in the United States.