Somali MP wants Canadian parents to keep close eye on youths who could be radicalized by extreme imams
A senior Somali government official wants Canadians to pay closer attention to youths to make sure they are not being influenced by radical preachers trying to lure them into taking up arms in his country.
Abdurahman Adan Ibrahim, a Member of Parliament and former Deputy Prime Minister, flew to Toronto last week to accompany a fellow MP who was badly wounded in an Al-Shabab suicide bombing in Mogadishu.
In an interview, Mr. Ibrahim, a member of his government’s foreign relations committee, said several Somali-Canadians had joined Al-Shabab and that someone had radicalized them and financed their travel.
“I would say that the Canadians should be very vigilant of not losing their own children, because this child, maybe he’s been told to go to jihad but next day he will be told to do the same jihad in the middle of Toronto,” he told the<em> National Post</em>.
“Why not? It’s the same thing. Because they are saying, ‘You are going to fight the infidels.’ What is actually keeping them from fighting the infidels of Toronto or the infidels of Montreal or the infidels of Ottawa? So we don’t need what happened in Westgate.”
He said parents should accompany their children to prayers to make sure they are not being indoctrinated into extremism. “I’m saying, go with your own children. Be with them. Don’t actually give them a chance to be alone with those preachers, which is very important. If we do that, we minimize at least 75% of the risk.”
At a conference in Halifax on Sunday, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said he would “make sure that our policemen are reaching out, that — I mean with imams. I meet with the Somali community who come to us and say, ‘Help us because our young are being radicalized,’” he said.
He said two terrorist attacks had been disrupted in Canada in the past year and authorities needed to track those “fascinated” by foreign conflicts, whom he said pose a threat when they travel abroad to participate in violence and an “even bigger” threat if they return.
nationalpost.com