Danforth investigators skeptical of ISIL claim
ISIL has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s mass shooting on Toronto’s Danforth, saying the gunman was among “the soldiers of the Islamic State,” but offered no proof of a direct link.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, responsible for waging war in Iraq and sponsoring and supporting terrorist attacks in the West, made the claim in an Arabic communiqué Wednesday through an ISIL-controlled media outlet, Amaq News Agency.
“The executor of the attack in the city of Toronto in southeastern Canada this past Sunday evening is from the soldiers of the Islamic State and he carried out the attack in response to appeals to target citizens of coalition countries,” the ISIL statement says, according to a translation by SITE Intelligence, a terrorism monitoring group.
The news agency attributed the statement to a “security source.”
The claim of responsibility offered no evidence of prior interaction between ISIL and the Danforth gunman, Faisal Hussain, 29, of Toronto, and it came only after media reports in Canada and the U.S. linked him to the radical ideas of Islamic State.
Toronto police said the claim does not match what their investigation has so far uncovered.
“At this stage, we have no evidence to support these claims,” said Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders.
“Since Sunday evening, all areas of the Toronto Police Service have been involved in this investigation. We have received assistance from law enforcement partners at every level and I have been updated regularly,” Saunders said in a written statement.
“Accurate information about this investigation will only be released by the Toronto Police Service. We will continue to explore every investigative avenue including interviewing those who knew Mr. Hussain, reviewing his online activity, and looking into his experiences with mental health.”
Hussain killed himself after a shootout with police on Bowden Avenue, CBC News reported Wednesday, quoting a police source. His body was found 100 metres away, on the Danforth.
The police refused to release the results of a postmortem, citing the ongoing investigation.
Security and terrorism experts cautioned against accepting the ISIL claim at face value.
“We have to be cautious on this. There are reasons to be skeptical,” said Stephanie Carvin, a professor of international relations at Carleton University, whose research focuses on domestic and international security, terrorism and technology.
“In this case, they haven’t given any new information, there is no proof of a pledge of allegiance and so far, national security authorities have said there is no national security nexus.”
ISIL claims aren’t what they used to be.
“They are now much less cautious and much less disciplined,” said Carvin.
Until a few years ago, ISIL, also known as ISIS, was careful about the attacks it claimed. Researchers found their claims were typically credible and came with verification; information was gleaned through nodes of support abroad and a chain of communication to ISIL command, said Amarnath Amarasingam, a senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who co-directs a study of Western foreign fighters based at the University of Waterloo.
“From 2014 onwards, there was a pretty rigorous verification process in place at ISIS central. There was some confidence we could have in their claims,” Amarasingam said.
As ISIL’s control has waned, however, the communication links were broken and their messaging seemed more desperate and less reliable. Claims of responsibility were issued for attacks that grabbed headlines but were devoid of tangible links to the terrorist organization.
The devastating 2017 Las Vegas shooting that left 58 people dead and 851 injured was claimed by ISIL, similarly saying the gunman was an Islamic State “soldier.” No evidence corroborated that and the FBI said the attack has no link to international terrorism.
Amarasingam suspects the Danforth shooting is similar. “This seems more like ISIS scrambling to fill the gap.
“They haven’t had an attack in the West for a while. This keeps them in the game,” Amarasingam said.
The claim came only after a few media accounts, particularly a CBS News report, reported a link between Hussain and ISIL and ISIL offered no evidence of independent verification.
As soon as he read that report, Amarasingam said he was certain ISIL would claim responsibility by the next day.
“And sure enough,” he said. “They are now taking any piece of evidence that they may have inspired (an attack) and running with it,” Amarasingam said.
Phil Gurski, a former strategic analyst with Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada’s spy agency, who now runs Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting, said the ISIL claim points to the group’s desperation for renewed relevance.
“It costs them nothing to make the claim and it gets them in the news again,” said Gurski. He suggested the claim is based on nothing more than googling the gunman’s name and issuing a statement.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Tuesday Hussain was not known to be a national security threat.
“As far as we’re aware at this stage based on the state of the investigation, which by the way is led by the Toronto Police Service, there is no connection between that individual and national security,” Goodale said.
(If the case had a serious and significant national security or terrorism component, it is likely the RCMP would assume a lead role in the investigation.)
Hussain was not at all religious, according to a neighbour and a friend who spoke with National Post. The neighbour knew the family and said Hussain declined to even participate in Friday prayers.
Hussain’s parents released a statement following the shooting, saying their son struggled with mental illness and expressing their devastation over the “senseless violence.”