The arrest of two men on suspicion of an plot with Al-Qaeda backing to attack a Canadian passenger train has rattled the local Muslim community.
Canada has thus far been spared the terror attacks inflicted on its neighbor to the south, but some recent foiled plots have raised concern that the Muslim community here is one tragic incident away from a potential backlash.
“The shock has been tremendous in the community,” Yusuf Badat, an imam and head of the Islamic Foundation of Toronto, said of the revelations earlier this week of the train plot.
But it is also “a relief” to know that police were tipped off about the plot by an imam, adds Abdul-Basit Khan, who leads a mosque in downtown Toronto.
That imam, who asked to remain anonymous, alerted police more than a year ago, his lawyer, Naseer Syed, told AFP.
“He was concerned about the activities of the individuals (and so) he gave first-hand information to investigators,” Syed said.
Islamic community liaisons with authorities are now commonplace in Canada, home to some 350,000 Muslims.
“Since 9/11 the community has been working very closely with the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police),” Badat said.
The new credo at Canadian mosques is “if you know someone is turning to extremism, then you have to stop him,” said Khan.
Beyond that, “it’s important to reduce the level of hysteria” and avoid linking Islam with extremism, he said.
Following the arrests and convictions of the so-called “Toronto 18″ for plotting to attack parliament, a nuclear power plant and the Toronto stock exchange in 2006, many Canadian Muslims have feared some kind of backlash.
Recent allegations of Canadian Muslims’ involvement in a deadly Shebab attack on the main courthouse in the Somali capital Mogadishu and a desert gas plant attack in Algeria have further exacerbated apprehensions.
“We have no appetite for radicalism here,” said Hussein Hamdani, a Toronto lawyer and member of a federal special anti-terrorism committee.
Toronto, a vastly multicultural metropolis with six million residents, half of them immigrants — has been welcoming to Muslims who forged a “fast-growing community,” he said.
A shining example is the Aga Khan museum set to open in 2014. About $300 million has been poured into construction of the Islamic cultural center.
“We have people from all over the world here, it’s what makes this city unique,” said Khan.
The rapid influx of Muslims has led to a shortage of imams, but anyone preaching violent or extremist views is immediately barred from mosques, he insists.
“Very radical Islamists don’t have permanent imams (here), they don’t have any kind of public stage. The community is quite moderate,” said Wesley Wark, a terrorism expert at Ottawa University.
Khan admits “there are many people who seek to radicalize” impressionable young people. “We must not deny it,” he said, noting that “extremists don’t need a case” to act.
The problem, according to Badat, is that “we don’t have a magic wand to determine which bad ideas are in the mind of some individuals.”
Canada Muslims rattled after train plot revealed
