Domestic recruits ‘eager to die for the cause’
Canada at risk of attack by returning jihadists who abandoned ‘comfy’ life here, report finds
MONTREAL— There is an elevated risk of domestic terror attacks as Daesh and other terror groups suffer defeat on the battlefield, according to the author of a groundbreaking report based on firsthand interviews with Canadian and western jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
“I’m confident that if they were ordered to go back home and do something, at least a high percentage, I think, would very obediently do it. It’s quite clear they are willing to die — eager to die for the cause,” said University of Waterloo professor Lorne Dawson, a terrorism researcher specializing in religious studies.
The report, which is co-authored by researcher Amarnath Amarasingam, tracked down 62 of the almost 100 Canadians believed by federal authorities to have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight with Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, or other terrorist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra.
More than a third — 22 — are from Ontario, 11 are of Somali origin and 10 are female. All were either born in Canada or raised in this country from a young age, Dawson said.
The majority of those contacted are from comfortable backgrounds — a conclusion that Dawson said challenges the prevailing belief that economic prospects, poverty and criminality are major elements in determining who will become radicalized.
“We’re just not seeing any evidence of that,” he said.
The report is one part of a larger project funded by Defence Research and Development Canada’s Canadian Safety and Security Program with a $580,000 grant.
“They’re true apocalyptic, utopian ideological thinkers. They honestly believe God’s on their side.” LORNE DAWSON TERRORISM RESEARCHER
The program funds research that will help the country anticipate, prevent or respond to disasters, accidents, crime and terrorism. The final draft of the report was submitted to the government this spring but has not yet been made public.
“The government believes in the importance of evidence-based decision-making in order to keep Canadians safe and to safeguard our rights and freedoms,” said Scott Bardsley, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, adding that the findings are those of the researchers, not the government.
The report examined a core group of 20 jihadists who were interviewed along with family and friends. Seven of the 20 are Canadian. The others are from the United States, the United Kingdom, other parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Australia.
“They almost all reported that they came from a ‘comfy’ background. Some even said ‘luxurious.’ They spoke about having access to cars and money and going on vacation and hanging out at the beach and partying,” said Dawson, adding that two-thirds had either attended postsecondary institutions or received university degrees.
In other words, most jihadists were not actively fleeing conditions in their home country but were instead drawn by an ideology that gave them an identity and a sense of purpose — even if that purpose is dying as a martyr for their interpretation of Islam.
“You get the feeling that they were saying that life seemed shallow and meaningless. That this wasn’t enough for them — certainly for those that finished a university degree and then started a career and then they walked away from it. It wasn’t because they were denied a future. It’s because what they’ve got is just not worth it.”
Three of the 20 jihadists interviewed for the report were from Quebec and in two of those cases either the young men or their families raised the issue of a secular charter proposed by the Parti Québécois government of the day that would have banned public-sector workers from wearing religious symbols such as a hijab.
“If you look at the remaining four Canadians, they make no mention about any particular special discrimination in Canada. Their justification is all about the virtue of the Islamic state and an Islamic life . . . about the general moral corruption of western society,” Dawson said.
The report found that almost every one of the jihadists were radicalized in a group before deciding to go abroad. In many cases a grievance over the plight of the Palestinians or conflicts in the Middle East or Afghanistan led the people online. There, they found extremist propaganda that they then shared with friends.
Most of the 20 interviewed were the first in their group to travel to Syria. About half were later joined by friends from back home.
“They all stressed that it’s a collective thing . . . but it’s clear that only some have the guts to actually go and the ones that spoke to us appear to be leaders, which would explain why they were willing to talk to us,” Dawson said.
No one contacted expressed a willingness to return home, or a doubt about their decision to travel abroad.
Their only regrets were that they had not yet achieved martyrdom — dying in battle in defence of their religion.
With the current military onslaught in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, or the inevitable future assaults on Mosul or Raqqa — the Syrian city that serves as Daesh’s headquarters — martyrdom becomes increasingly likely, but so does the terror group’s desperation, Dawson warned.
“They’re true apocalyptic, utopian ideological thinkers. They honestly believe God’s on their side,” he said. “They know that there’s a long, dark persecution before . . . virtue triumphs and the more and more they lose and they’re persecuted, in a bizarre way, the more intransigent they’ll become and convinced that . . . if they don’t break faith with God then God will ultimately reward their faithfulness.”