TORONTO SUN: Al-Qaida-inspired domestic terrorism by young Muslims poses the largest single threat to Canadian security agencies, a sweeping new study says.
“Canada has been identified repeatedly in al-Qaida propaganda as a legitimate target because of its involvement in Afghanistan,” according to a 250-page report, The Edge of Violence by a group of researchers in the United Kingdom. “The idea of being part of an international jihadi movement can be exhilarating.”
The report, released Wednesday, took researchers Jamie Bartlett, Jonathan Birdwell and Michael King two years to complete and involved interviews with hundreds of Muslims and others in Canada and Europe.
They studied the differences between violent and non-violent Islamic radicals, including the so-called Toronto 18 terror cell, and conducted focus groups in Toronto and Montreal with 70 Muslim youth last year.
One group made up of young men between the ages of 18 and 30 “was unanimous that brainwashing was taking place.”
Young Muslims “had a distrust of government, a hatred for foreign policy and many felt a disconnection from their local community,” the report found.
There “was a high level of distrust towards policing and intelligence agencies.” >>> Tom Godfrey, Toronto Sun | Wednesday, December 08, 2010
