Canada a safe haven for extremists, former Mountie says

Trevor Wilhelm, Windsor Star

Canada is vulnerable to a host of terrorist threats, and is a safe haven for terrorists and war criminals because authorities blind themselves to the dangers, according to a top jihad expert.

Thomas Quiggin, a former RCMP intelligence expert and Canada’s only court-recognized jihad authority, said Canadians will remain vulnerable to political and religious extremists until their government develops a better approach to dealing with them.

“Secrecy is the ally of the terrorist and the criminal,” said Quiggin, also a Senior Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security in Singapore. “Knowledge is the great asset to the government and Canadian citizens, yet our federal government agencies insist on retreating from any public debate on the issues and they wrap themselves in a useless and self-defeating cloak of secrecy.”

The issue of terrorist threats resurfaced this month with the controversial lecture of Zachariah Anani, a self-proclaimed former terrorist. Anani, now an evangelical Christian, said Islamic doctrine teaches the worship of a god who “strikes with terror.”

Quiggin said he doesn’t believe Anani’s claims of being a Muslim terrorist. But the terrorist threat to Canada, from what he stressed is an extremist minority, is real, Quiggin said. And it’s overlooked.

“Canada has been and remains a safe haven for terrorists, war criminals and those who have committed crimes as serious as genocide,” he said. “Until we decide as a country to take an all-of-government approach to solving our problems, we remain vulnerable to a host of these threats.”

Quiggin said Canada has no national strategic view and no “horizon scanning” program to detect new threats.

“The only force that can prevail in the face of such threats is knowledge,” said Quiggin. “What is most stunning, however, is the near total lack of knowledge of the problem in the federal government and the lack of any attempt to get there.”

Melisa Leclerc, spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, said the government has made several strides in the fight against terrorism.

She pointed out that last June, authorities nabbed people allegedly plotting southern Ontario terror attacks.

Leclerc added that the government put the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) on its list of terrorist entities.

In the 2006 budget, she said, the Conservative government committed $1.4 billion over two years for national security and community safety, and $160 million to hire 1,000 new RCMP officers.

The government also allocated $303 million over two years to promote low-risk trade and tourism within North America, said Leclerc.

She said border guards will be armed starting in July and will no longer work alone.

But Quiggin, who recently finished a conference with speakers including the former head of MI-6 and the New York City Police Department’s deputy commissioner, said other jurisdictions take a far more progressive and effective approach.

He said his institute in Singapore has more than 100 full-time staff and a list of world class experts who visit on a rotating basis. New York police –“one of the shining examples of how to attack this type of problem” — has 24 full-time analysts dealing with terrorism, he said.

February 17, 2007 | 3 Comments »

3 Comments / 3 Comments

  1. Funny Bush Video, but just some humourous bloopers.

    Lightning out of Lebanon, Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil. By Tom Diaz and Barbara Newman. New York: Presidio Press/Ballantine Books, 234 pages, $24.95.

    http://www.clhrf.com/documents/hezbollah.canada.htm

    Hezbollah uses Canada as base:
    CSIS Agency wiretaps show suspected operatives using laundered money to buy materiel
    …
    Thursday, October 31, 2002
    The terrorist group Hezbollah has been using Canada as an offshore base for raising money and purchasing supplies needed to carry out and videotape attacks against Israel, documents obtained by the National Post show. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents detail how Hezbollah has laundered tens of thousands of dollars through Canadian banks while drawing on the accounts to shop for military equipment. Hezbollah agents shopped for blasting devices, night-vision goggles, powerful computers and camera equipment used to record attacks against Israeli forces, according to dozens of CSIS wiretaps obtained yesterday.

    ….
    But Canadian police and intelligence reports show the group has been using Canada in recent years to buy materiel, forge travel documents, raise money and steal luxury vehicles. CSIS reports dated April, 2002 show that in 1999 and 2000, Hezbollah sent …

    The extent of Hezbollah operations in Canada first came to light in the 1990’s … “Hezbollah has members in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto — all of Canada,” Mr. Al-Husseini, a member of Hezbollah’s security organization, told CSIS before he was deported in 1994.
    “Hezbollah wants to collect information on Canada, on life in Canada, its roads and so on, in case there’s a problem with Canada.” He was reportedly referring to videotapes of Canadian landmarks sent to Hezbollah. The RCMP has also linked auto theft rings in Ontario and Quebec to Hezbollah, saying that a portion of the criminal proceeds were funneled to the group, and that luxury SUVs stolen in Canada were being driven by high-ranking Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon. The CSIS reports on Hezbollah’s Canadian activities were made available recently to U.S. attorneys prosecuting accused operatives involved in a North Carolina cigarette smuggling ring.
    Copyright 2002 National Post

    http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5589

    The Canadian CBC’s Love Affair With Hezbollah
    By Stephen Brown
    FrontPageMagazine.com | January 17, 2003

    They’re cut from the same cloth.

    While America’s publicly-funded PBS last month was airing a sanitized, benign view of Islam, Canada’s taxpayer-supported Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was doing the same for Hezbollah.

    http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/hagmann071806.htm

    Confirmed: Hezbollah Terror Operatives, “Sleeper Cells” Poised in the U.S
    By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director, Northeast Intelligence Network

    Tuesday, July 18, 2006

    Canadian Global TV News Spouts Hezbollah Lies

    Here is the enemy within. The smiling face of lies and propaganda. How can Canada survive when we have wolves without and snakes within?

    Here is another Canadian leftist News media corporation telling bald faced lies. They repeat enemy propaganda as if it were the truth.

    Hizbollah in Canada

    http://my.opera.com/maxmuller/blog/show.dml/447733

    Photo: Hezbollah formation in Lebanon. Since Israel failed to destroy this terrorist organization, it now has a protected communications and materials pipeline to Canada and it’s many supporters in the 800,00 member Muslim community.

    Here is a collection of articles documenting the extent of Hizbollah in Canada.

    Hezbollah Support and Terrorist Propaganda in Canada

    Here in these links is some of the truth of about the support for the terrorist Hizbullah, for militant Islam and militant anti-Israeli propaganda in Canada

    Whoop dee doo!, since the ’90s at least eh? But here it is 2007 and it looks like nobody really knows it yet. Guess the public is having some trouble with the concept. That silly little piece of tripe passes for informative news? There is nobody STOPPING this thing. NOBODY is cleaning house and closing the door. The way that news is presented is like no one ever heard of it before..and they probably didn’t, and no big deal! Most of you die at midnight, now get back to shopping at Walmart and Hockey Night in Canada.
    …
    The news has always been there squirreled away and hidden by the mass media and the establishment. The enemy is everywhere in Canada now using their democratic rights to oppress us, terrorize us and bury us. The devil is here, they are living in our house and they are will be doing to us what they are doing to the Israelis and the Europeans and they are protected by the our corrupt Power Elite and our greedy Media.

  3. Oh gee, What a surprise!
    Oh well, I feel so warm about it now, so long as Canadians have someone to tell them what to think and what to think about they should have no problem.

    There is s a lot of shit waiting to be rubbed in the noses of fatuously ignorant and foolishly nationalistic Canadians. They have bought a false image of themselves from the Media. Whatever the media tell Canadians about Canada and Canadians it is an illusion. A Canadian wouldn’t recognize another Canadian even if they were bitten by one.

    Why would any or most Canadians need anyone to tell them what is common sense? The answer to that is because the brainwashing has to be removed before they can see reality.
    They don’t just have the sins of ignorance on the world stage, they have it in what their own repressive and corrupt government is doing to it’s own citizens.
    Well, not too much can be done about it against the present power brokers. Canadians are long way away from waking up. Anyone that wants to warn the public will get a rough slapping. It’s a tragedy within a tragedy. The only useful thing a person can do is stay away from newspapers, radio news and unplug the TV.

    That’s the starting point, to start cleaning the brains and try to use them for thinking one’s own thoughts.

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