Canadian Fear Campaign: “Islamic Extremists” and the Dubious Role of Intelligence Agencies

With the killing of a Canadian soldier in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, on October 20, and the shooting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on October 22, the Canadian authorities and the mainstream media have already decided. Without evidence, they are blaming “Islamic extremism” for both incidents, even though we know practically nothing about the two men who acted alone.

No terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but we are told that the two young men had converted to Islam and one of them, Martin Couture-Rouleau, who hit a soldier with his car in Saint-Jean, had “self-radicalized over the internet”. The Edmonton Sun said that “family and law enforcement try to find out why he followed ISIS kill commands.” Is there any evidence that he was “following ISIS Kill commands”?

We were told that both were known by the authorities who had confiscated their passports for fear that they would join terrorist organizations abroad. If the authorities went as far as confiscating their passports for fear they would commit terrorist attacks abroad, didn’t they fear that they would commit attacks here?

At this point we can only speculate about the motives of these two men. And one question that the media should ask, is whether the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had anything to do with these attacks, since it has a known history of using informants to infiltrate Muslim organizations and issue violent threats against Canadian citizens. Moreover, known and documented ISIS has been supported covertly by the US and its Persian Gulf allies since the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011.

But since the first killing on October 20, rather than being suspicious of the authorities, who have been warning us of the “homegrown terrorist threat” for months, the media relies almost exclusively on security and terrorism “experts” and law enforcement officials to provide “authoritative commentary” and they all agree on the “Islamic extremist” theory and self-radicalization on the internet.

It is very disturbing to say the least that security and terrorism “experts” are unaware that the root cause of terrorism, as demonstrated by studies, is not Islamic fundamentalism or any ideology, but foreign occupation, not to mention the fact that Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists are supported covertly by Western intelligence.

Based on research from the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Terrorism, and funded in part by the US Defense Department’s Threat Reduction Agency, Professor Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman wrote a book in 2010 called “Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It.”

Abdus Sattar Ghazali summarized the book’s conclusions in 2010:

In 2000, before the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, there were 20 suicide attacks around the world, and only one (against the USS Cole) was directed against Americans. In the last 12 months, by comparison, 300 suicide attacks have occurred, and over 270 were anti-American. We simply must face the reality that, no matter how well-intentioned, the current war on terror is not serving U.S. interests.”

The authors examined more than 2,200 suicide attacks across the world from 1980 to the present. As the United States has occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, which have a combined population of about 60 million, total suicide attacks worldwide have risen dramatically — from about 300 from 1980 to 2003, to 1,800 from 2004 to 2009. Further, over 90-percent of suicide attacks worldwide are now anti-American. The vast majority of suicide terrorists hail from the local region threatened by foreign troops, which is why 90-percent of suicide attackers in Afghanistan are Afghans.

In Cutting the Fuse, the authors pointed out: “Prior to 9/11, the expert debate on the causes of suicide terrorism was divided largely between two explanations — religious fanaticism and mental illness. In the years after 9/11, new research on who becomes a suicide terrorist showed that virtually none could be diagnosed as mentally ill, while many were religious and, most striking, nearly all emerged from communities resisting foreign military occupation.” (Abdus Sattar Ghazali, The root cause of suicide terrorism is occupation: New study, OpEd News, September 29, 2010)

Back in 2007, Alexandre Popovic wrote extensively about how CSIS informants “infiltrated the Canadian Muslim community and contributed to portray Islam in a negative way and fuel the stereotypes that Muslims are essentially dangerous extremists.” (Alexandre Popovic, Les manipulations médiatiques du SCRS, September 1, 2007)

One of the informants, Youssef Muammar, became the “leader of several organizations such as the International Islamic Foundation of Canada, Petro Action, the International Institute of Islamic Research, the Communauté de la nation musulmane du Grand Montréal, the Grand Mosque, Info-Islam and the magazine Le Monde islamique.” (André Noël, «Un drôle d’espion», La Presse, December 14, 2001, p. A7, cited in Alexandre Popovic, Les manipulations médiatiques du SCRS, September 1, 2007)

In other words, through its high-profile informants, CSIS was squarely in position to shape the public perception of the Canadian Muslim community.

Both informants in question are Gilles Joseph Breault, aka “Dr. Youssef Muammar” and “Abu Jihad” from Montreal, and Mubin Shaikh from Toronto. Note that we are not dealing here with mere speculation or an umpteenth conspiracy theory. First, both individuals publicly admitted working under the orders of CSIS. On the other hand, their multiple media interventions are largely documented in the archives of print media, which have gone so far as to portray the two informants as spokespersons of the Canadian Muslim community, even as their “leaders”.

From 1989 to 1994, Youssef Muammar seems to have been involved in all the controversies, be they large or small and associated directly or indirectly with radical Islam, such as the attempted coup in Trinidad and Tobago or the spread of heinous anti-Jewish propaganda […]

After openly supporting anti-Israel terrorism and appealing to murder opponents of the Islamic Salvation Front, an Algerian Islamist party now dissolved, Muammar sent messages threatening of biochemical weapons attacks in the Montreal metro. (Ibid.)

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and CSIS have been warning Canadians about “the very real terrorist threat” for months but, say they were “caught by surprise” by the two recent attacks committed by individuals they were monitoring close enough to confiscate their passports.

We were told that in Montreal people who are working in areas with a dense Muslim and immigrant population met with police and imams and were asked to “remain vigilant” and report “any suspicious activity” because they were “expecting something to happen.”

This method of relying on civilians to “spy” on their fellow citizens is reminiscent of the East German Stasi, the Ministry of State Security. “One of its main tasks was spying on the population, mainly through a vast network of citizens turned informants, and fighting any opposition by overt and covert measures including hidden psychological destruction of dissidents.”

Canadians need to keep in mind that the attacks are being used as a pretext for increased police state security measures and an integration of border security with the United States. The Ottawa shooter was actually identified by US sources even before the Canadian police had identified him. This raises serious questions on the extent to which the US and Canadian intelligence services are integrated. The Week reported:

Canadian police are yet to officially identify the suspect but US sources told Reuters he is Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a 32-year-old Canadian who recently converted to Islam. He was reportedly born and raised in Quebec, and later spent time in Libya and various regions of Canada as a labourer. His father is believed to be Bulgasem Zehaf, a Quebec businessman who appears to have fought in 2011 in Libya, and Susan Bibeau, the deputy chair of a division of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board. (Michael Zehaf-Bibeau: the gunman behind the Ottawa shootings, The Week, October 23, 2014)

Knowing that most terrorist plots in the US are orchestrated by the FBI, as the extensive Mother Jones research showed, this integration between the two countries is far from reassuring.

We should also remember that NATO has a history of false flag terrorism. Operation Gladio, NATO’s secret army, was a clandestine operation to prevent the rise of communism in Europe and was used to commit terrorist attacks against the population, which were blamed on the Communists. The ultimate goal was to have people turn to the state for more security and reject communism. (See also Tony Cartalucci: Canadian Terror Wave: a Modern-Day Gladio)

In the past two days, in addition to calls for increased security measures, we are clearly seeing the glorification of the Canadian military, which has taken part in illegal bombings in the Middle East for many years in the name of democracy and other false humanitarian pretexts. Far from being a solution to terrorism, the Canadian Forces are part of the problem. The bombing of Libya, to cite the most recent example, helped fuel terrorism in the region.

And last but not least,  why is it so easy for extremists to use Facebook and other social media to issue death threats and apparently radicalize young fragile minds when until recently Facebook “moderators were told to ban images of breastfeeding if the nipples were exposed”?

But most importantly, the Canadian media should be questioning Canada’s foreign policy and Ottawa’s military involvement in America’s wars instead of focusing on “self-radicalized individuals”.


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Articles by: Julie Lévesque

About the author:

Julie Lévesque is a journalist and researcher with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. She was among the first independent journalists to visit Haiti in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake. In 2011, she was on board "The Spirit of Rachel Corrie", the only humanitarian vessel which penetrated Gaza territorial waters before being shot at by the Israeli Navy.

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