Free Republic

Organizers of Islamic history month are mulling over why their project has failed to achieve the same success in Toronto that it's found in other parts of the country. The Canadian Islamic Congress declared October to be Islamic history month and received support from many cities and school boards, including Ottawa, Vancouver and Kingston, but not Toronto. Zafar Bangash, director of the Islamic Society in York Region, said the success of black history month inspired his community to try something similar. But he said organizers were late getting started, which may explain why the Toronto school board was reluctant to...

A British born Muslim student found guilty of Islamist terrorism offences was a "wannabe suicide bomber" who police believe could have been planning to take part in alleged al-Qa'eda attacks in Canada. Mohammed Atif Siddique has been found guilty on four separate terror charges Siddique will be sentenced on Oct 23 Mohammed Atif Siddique, 21, who has been described as Scotland's first homegrown terrorist, provided instruction on weapons and booby-trap bomb making over the internet, and showed videos of beheadings and suicide bombers to fellow students at the Glasgow Metropolitan College. The small town shopkeeper's son told friends that Osama...

VisionTV to strike standards task force Will Also Air Apology; CEO Expresses Regrets In Wake Of Jihadist's BroadcastTORONTO - VisionTV said yesterday a producer would apologize on the air "at the earliest opportunity" for broadcasting lectures by a Pakistani fundamentalist who preaches global jihad and the "extermination" of Jews. In addition to banning further broadcasts of Lahore-based hardliner Israr Ahmad, the Canadian multi-faith channel announced it would set up a task force to review its standards and procedures in the wake of the controversy. "We have taken clear steps to ensure that Mr. Ahmad will not appear on VisionTV again,"...

A new study by the Canadian government predicts that the explosion of even a small dirty bomb in downtown Toronto could result in a rush on the city’s medical facilities and an economic toll of more than $23 billion. The disclosure comes just months after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said a dirty bomb assault in that country was "overdue.” The study explored the nightmare scenario involving the detonation of a device containing a modest amount of americium-241, a plutonium byproduct, The Canadian Press news agency reported, noting: "The grim outline is not far-fetched. A database of lost and stolen...

<p>MONTREAL (CP) - Students at a Montreal college say they have heard several shots in the building and that four people have been shot.</p> <p>One student at Dawson College said she saw two people who had been shot, including one who had been hit in the neck. The student said a friend told her four people had been shot.</p>

The Israeli ambassador is taking Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe to task for participating in a pro-Hezbollah rally. Alan Baker has written a sharply worded letter to Duceppe, saying the Aug. 6 march in Montreal was a glorification of Hezbollah, which Canada considers to be a terrorist group. Liberal MP Denis Coderre also marched, but Baker aimed his complaint at Duceppe, a party leader. The ambassador says he has no problem with demonstrations or with people expressing their opinions, but he says glorifying Hezbollah is wrong.

I attended the anti-Hezbollah rally in Toronto today, to counter to pro-Hezbollah rally that was taking place in front of the Israeli Consulate. It is pretty terrifying to see such support for murderers and terrorists here in my own city. Our crowd wasn't huge. The pro-Hezbollah types are smart to put their rallys on the Shabbas, so not many Jews will come out to protest. But we were vocal, that's for sure! Remember Golda Maier's quote: "There will never be peace until they love their children as much as they hate us"?

TORONTO -- The Canadian Security Intelligence Service practice of paying informants to gather intelligence from specific religious communities in Canada is a perfectly acceptable tactic that has been misunderstood and misrepresented, security experts say. Places of worship are only investigated if suspicious individuals are known to frequent them, former employees of the spy agency and the RCMP said Monday in response to media reports that said CSIS has infiltrated virtually every mosque in Toronto. “It’s absolutely, absolutely untrue that there’s a spy in every mosque,” said Chris Mathers, a crime and risk consultant and former RCMP officer. “The RCMP and...

Yukon crash ends faith missionAccident kills 5 Muslims on cross-country trip Just one of five from Toronto survivesIt began two weeks ago as a Muslim community outreach mission. Several men crossed the country by van, visiting Muslims from Toronto to Inuvik, N.W.T. to see how they lived and how they practised Islam.They were due back in early August, but a fatal car crash above the Arctic Circle took the lives of five of them — four from Toronto, one from Whitehorse in the Yukon. Only one man, Zafar Malik of Toronto, survived the crash. The others, Azmat Sheikh, 38, Naoman...

John Cummuta: Militant Muslims are the culprits in many of world's current conflicts A letter to the editor Dear Editor: These are the facts: • On 9/11 we were attacked by militant Islamists. • But before that, our Marines were attacked in Lebanon by the same Hezbollah that's in the news today, and our embassies were attacked in Africa and the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen, all by militant Muslims. • Britain, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and other European countries have recently endured Islamist attacks or threats. • Indonesia, Bali, the Philippines, Australia, and other Asian countries periodically...

The suicide bombers continue and now public executions are beginning. Iraqis continue to kill Iraqis in alarming numbers. Shia Muslims want revenge against Sunni Muslims. Sunni Muslims want their power back. Iraq has a serious problem. The problem in Iraq isn’t the people in general. The problem isn’t the new government or even the presence of coalition forces. The problem in Iraq is Islam. Islam, the self proclaimed “religion” of peace and love cannot stop killing its own people in the name of Islam and Allah. Islam is a religion that proclaims murder is wrong, and the killing of a...

Lawyers acting for a group of Canadian terror suspects have complained about a media blackout on court proceedings. Speaking after 14 of the 17 suspects appeared at a bail hearing in Brampton, Ontario, they said it was indicative that the men cannot get a fair trial. Details of the charges they face have not been published but their lawyers say they include an alleged plot to storm parliament and behead the PM. The accusations against the men, most Canadians, has caused nationwide shock. Citizens' rights Rocco Galati, representing one of the suspects, who include five teenagers, complained that the men...

MONTREAL, June 11 (UPI) -- Montreal police are investigating a reported attack on a Muslim imam by a man carrying a knife who asked if the imam wanted to "die a martyr." The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. says investigators consider the attack a hate crime. Imam Said Jazeri and a friend were leaving a mosque Friday night when a man with a butcher's knife approached them. The man allegedly pointed the knife at Jazeri and asked: "Do you want to die a martyr?" Jazeri said he was able to call police while the man chased his friend down the street. A...

Are you surprised that terrorists appear to have set their sights on such unlikely targets as the Parliament building in Ottawa and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in Toronto? Astonished that anyone would even consider sawing off the head of a Canadian Prime Minister? Are you thinking: What could anyone have against free, democratic, liberal, multicultural, diverse and tolerant Canada? The question answers itself. Freedom, democracy, liberalism, multiculturalism, diversity and tolerance – these are precisely the attributes that Militant Islamists find most offensive. This reality is difficult for some people to fathom. It shouldn't be. The Nazis disdained liberal societies as...

BRAMPTON, Ont. (CP) - One of the suspects in a Toronto terror plot is accused of wanting to behead Canada's prime minister, his lawyer said Tuesday. Lawyer Gary Batasar says the allegations against his client are very serious and include his personal threat against the prime minister. Steven Chand is also accused of plotting to storm and bomb various buildings, he says. Chand is among 17 people accused of plotting to stage a massive terrorist attack in southern Ontario. Fifteen of the 17 people facing charges are in court today. Family members who arrived to support them were met by...

THE arrests of 17 Toronto-area Muslim men - allegedly intent on blowing up such southern Ontario targets as CN Tower, Parliament and the Toronto Stock Exchange - led to some Nancy Kerrigan "why me?" moments among Canadians. Folks here think that targeting Canadians is like gunning for the Care Bears. A mere flash of a Canadian flag on our backpacks is supposed to make people from all over the world want to hug, feed and clothe us. The reaction to what might've been the biggest terrorist attack in North America was the same when Osama bin Laden, and more recently,...

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario Several members of a suspected terrorist ring prayed daily at a storefront mosque in a middle-class city west of Toronto but never spoke of hurting others, one of their prayer leaders said. "I will say that they were steadfast, religious people. There's no doubt about it. But here we always preach peace and moderation," Qamrul Khanson, an imam at the one-room Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education, said Sunday. The 40-50 Muslim families who worship at the mosque were astonished, he said, to learn that police had arrested 12 adults, ages 19 to 43, and five suspects younger...

Williams worked with authorities on al-Qaida links When Canadian law enforcement authorities busted a Toronto terrorist plot with al-Qaida connections, they acted with the benefit of briefings and research developed by American investigator Paul L. Williams, author of the new WND Books release "Dunces of Doomsday: 10 Blunders that Gave Rise to Radical Islam." Canadian police last Friday arrested 17 suspected Islamic terrorists, mostly in Toronto, who were allegedly planning to unleash a string of attacks in Ontario in retaliation for the country's support of the U.S. in the War on Terror. Williams has long been investigating the link between...

Plot targeted Peace Tower, police say Complex operation leading to arrests of alleged terrorists shrouded in secrecy TIMOTHY APPLEBY AND COLIN FREEZE Globe and Mail Monday, June 5, 2006 The ammonium nitrate was delivered. The targets were set. After two years of a stealthily assembled counterterrorism web of surveillance, wiretaps and informants, police were ready to swoop down. The operation was so complex and tightly shrouded that everyone involved — including all the roughly 400 police officers who scooped up the 17 suspected Islamic extremists Friday and Saturday — had to sign the Official Secrets Act, pledging total discretion....

How Internet monitoring sparked a CSIS investigation into a suspected homegrown terror cell Toronto red Star Jun. 3, 2006. 01:00 AM MICHELLE SHEPHARD STAFF REPORTER Last night's dramatic police raid and arrest of as many as a dozen men — with more to come — marks the culmination of Canada's largest ever terrorism investigation into an alleged homegrown cell. The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad. Their words were sometimes...