Terrorism Breeding at Home

Ó Dr. Gary D. Lemmons, June 4, 2006

The Canadian round-up of 17 suspects, allegedly inspired by al-Qaida, coupled with the arrest of two Georgians earlier this year on terrorism-related charges, may signal a new element of the terrorist threat to North America.  It very well may be that the threat of Islamist terrorism will come from the Islamic population already existing within the U. S. and Canada. 

In April, Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, a Georgia Tech student originally from Pakistan, and Ehsanul Sadequee, 19, of Roswell, were arrested in March and April of 2006, respectively.  Ahmed was charged with providing material support to terrorism, while Sadequee is alleged to have lied to investigators.

In March of 2005, Ahmed and Sadequee traveled to Canada where they appear to have had talks with individuals who were part of the number arrested this week.  Later the two traveled to Washington, D.C., where they made a “casing” video of the Capitol Building, a World Bank facility, a fuel storage facility, and a Masonic Temple.  This last location is of particular interest to me.  Likely, it was the House of the Temple of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America.

The 17 suspects arrested on Saturday in Canada are all in their teens and early 20s.  Despite their youth and, one would hope, inexperience, they had managed to collect three tons of ammonium nitrate and other bomb making materials.  This is three times the amount of material used to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

What is most troubling about this situation is that all of the 17 young men appeared to have had a typical Canadian upbringing.  The only difference seems to be that, as young Muslims, they were drawn to the fanatical Islamist point of view.  The Islamist view, largely created by a fanatical application of Wahhabe Islam from Saudi Arabia, asserts that it is the duty of all true Muslims to oppose the infidel (non-Muslims) to the extent that that the latter are subdued and/or destroyed.  It would seem that these young Muslim men are drawn to this sect because of the feeling of isolation and, possibly, the distrust with which, they perceive, Western society views them.

It is time that the mainstream Muslim community in the United States and Canada rises to the task of educating their young men as to the fallacy of this viewpoint.  Additionally, it is time that the mainstream Christian and Jewish communities in the west reach out in friendship to the greater Muslim community.

The most frightening form of terrorism is that which is bred at home among our own people…be they Klansmen, Dannites, Regulators, Aryan Brothers, Muslim extremists, Crips, Bloods, 13 Locos, Skinheads, or Posse.  Unless we move to defuse the influence and power of these groups, our society will pay a most egregious price.