AL-QAEDA CAN’T SURVIVE WITHOUT THE WEST
Stewart Bell: The Internet has surpassed Taliban Afghanistan as a recruiting and training ground for terror
The deportation proceedings against Samir Ait Mohamed began matter-of-factly in Vancouver on July 31, 2001. There was debate about whether his handcuffs and leg irons should be removed (they were) and whether the court security officer should sit or stand (he sat).
The Arabic-language interpreter asked for a ban on the publication of his name because, he said, “there could be some people who can get to me through this.” The Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator agreed and ordered that the identity of the interpreter would be protected.
“Mr. Adjudicator, again, one last thing. I promise this is the last one,” the lawyer representing the federal government said apologetically.
“Mr. Ait Mohamed suffers from diabetes and he was given an insulin shot prior to the hearing beginning at 1:30 today and he will probably require another shot at 4:30.
“So we’ll — if we’re sitting at that time, then we’ll probably need to take a break and have a nurse administer a shot.”
“ Yes,” the adjudicator replied. “ Yes, just make sure you remind me.”
“Very well.”
The federal lawyer then went on to describe the case against Mr. Ait Mohamed, alleging that he had conspired with al- Qaedatrained jihadists to carry out a terrorist attack in Canada. In the eyes of the authorities, he was a man so anti-Western in his beliefs that he wanted not only to kill Canadians but also to set up his own training camp in Afghanistan so he could pass his explosives expertise on to others.
And yet he was being kept alive by insulin, a product of Canadian invention, an innovation of the very people and society and values that he stood accused of conspiring to blow up.
“Had he any idea that he owed his life to a Canadian medical discovery?” said one former official. “Did he care? Was there even a flicker of gratitude for Canada underlying his actions?”
For the record, Mr. Ait Mohamed has not been convicted of any crimes, and he denies the allegations against him, although both Ahmed Ressam and another terrorist named Abdelmajid Dahoumane have named him as an accomplice.
In March, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Jim Judd, told the Senate committee on the Anti- Terrorism Act that Mr. Ait Mohammed’s activities were an example of “pre-operational planning reconnaissance” that “has been undertaken in Canada on a variety of possible targets in some of our largest metropolitan centres.”
It cannot be easy to nurture such a fanatical hatred as that shared by al- Qaeda and its alliance of radical Islamic extremist factions. No small amount of mental mind games must be required to remain so zealously antiWestern.
“Oh Allah, strike America, the first among the infidels,” the Zarqawi group in Iraq said following Hurricane Katrina, in a typical on-line statement. “Oh Allah, count them, and kill them all without exception … send upon them typhoons and disgrace.”
But how could someone rationalize such burning contempt when he owes his very life to Western innovation, ingenuity and humanitarianism — when he must pause every few hours to inject himself with a life-saving hormone discovered by Canadian medical pioneers?
Mr. Ait Mohamed may not know it, but the shots he receives several times a day to regulate his off-kilter blood sugar were invented in the 1920s by University of Toronto researchers, headed by Dr. Fredrick Banting, who toiled in their laboratory to improve the lives of diabetics.
It was one of the great medical advances of the 20th century, invented by just four of the many dedicated men and women of the Western world who have put their talents and energies into building a better world rather than tearing it down, as al-Qaeda does so well.
Osama bin Laden is so antiWestern that he will not allow his children to drink Coke, but upon closer examination it is clear he is selective about his ban on Western consumer products. He travelled in Afghanistan in a Toyota 4x4. He is also believed to suffer from kidney disease and is kept alive thanks to an artificial kidney dialysis machine (invented of a Dutch physician who later worked in the United States) smuggled into Afghanistan by Pakistanis.
And he has a longstanding love affair with video cameras, using them to record his rants and death threats ( video technology was invented by Charles Ginsburg of San Francisco).
Al-Qaeda has also taken keenly to the Internet, which has surpassed Taliban Afghanistan as a recruiting and training ground for terror ( it was an American scientist, working for the U. S. Department of Defence, who came up with the protocols for the World Wide Web in 1973).
If anything has fuelled the current menace of al- Qaeda and its like-minded terrorist factions it is this marriage of archaic jihadist ideology with modern Western invention. If not for the Internet and video, bin Laden would have only his wives and camels to talk to.
Perhaps the Western innovation that has been most effectively exploited by terrorists is the commitment to rights and freedoms. Terrorists plot the random death and destruction of Western citizens and societies, but as soon as they are caught, they want Western justice.
And all the while, their supporters use their freedom of speech to undermine Western resolve to fight terrorism by belittling the threat and protesting the security measures that governments have been forced to put in place to guard against Islamic extremist violence.
The terrorists that live among us inhabit our cities as they coldly plot and pray for our destruction, but their heads are in another space altogether, a fantasy land of infidels who deserve to die for the supposed sins of a Western world that, oddly, has made even the lives of terrorists that much better.
The truth is that bin Laden and his followers are far more Westernized than they might like to admit, more like Charles Manson than Muhammad. In some cases, the West is, literally, coursing through their veins.
Mr. Ait Mohamed is still being held in Vancouver. Canadian immigration officials are still trying to deport him back to Algeria. A hearing scheduled for last week was postponed and the case may resume in October.
His deportation proceedings are being conducted behind closed doors, but the government’s case is described in transcripts unsealed by the government: he crossed the border into Canada on Oct. 23, 1997, using a forged Belgian passport. Just over a year after settling in Montreal, according to the FBI, he used his criminal contacts to supply a 9mm Heckler & Koch pistol ( with the serial number helpfully scratched out) to the Algerian terrorist Ressam.
He helped Ressam set up a shop called Marché Benni, which the FBI says was a front whose sole purpose was to defraud its customers by stealing their credit card information and then to send the criminal proceeds abroad “to finance Islamic jihad.”
In February, 1999, Mr. Ait Mohamed told another Montrealbased terrorist that he knew how to make a bomb and asked if his friend could “place” it for him, the FBI alleges.
That summer, the FBI claims, Mr. Ait Mohamed and Ressam had a discussion about bombing a Jewish neighbourhood in Montreal; they thought Outremont would be a good target because of all the “ Jewish individuals walking about with long, curly sideburns.”
In October, Mr. Ait Mohamed sent four forged Canadian passports and money to Germany, says the FBI, so that a trained terrorist could enter Canada to help carry out an attack inside Canada.
Following his arrest, Ressam told FBI investigators that Mr. Ait Mohamed “would like to start his own camp in Afghanistan” and “wanted to teach explosives training,” according to a transcript of a hearing.
“ That’s lies,” Mr. Ait Mohamed responded.
His lawyer says the allegations are based solely on the unreliable testimony of other terrorists and that there is no corroborating evidence. The immigration adjudicator ruled that, “based on Ressam’s evidence, I am satisfied that you did do the things he said you did.”
On Sept. 6, 2001, Mr. Ait Mohamed was brought back before the Immigration and Refugee Board. The government lawyer argued the case for keeping him in custody, and then the adjudicator halted the proceedings.
“I note it’s time for Mr. Ait Mohamed to receive some medical attention,” the adjudicator said, “so we’ll take a recess for half an hour.”
It was time for another insulin shot. National Post Stewart Bell is a senior reporter
at the National Post and
the author of The Martyr’s
Oath:
The Apprenticeship of
a Homegrown Terrorist.