Twenty-five-year-old Mohamed Hersi was to board a flight to Africa on Tuesday evening, bringing his Canadian passport, a spotless record and his university-educated mind.
His boarding pass said he was bound for Egypt. But police never let him leave Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, arresting him on allegations that he was actually en route to becoming a terrorist in Somalia.
Mr. Hersi is now jailed awaiting trial on what amounts to a new kind of “terrorist” case for Canada. He stands accused of “attempting to participate” in terrorist activity and counselling unspecified persons to do the same.
Police have not mentioned any bombs, bullets or any kind of concrete violent scheme in connection with this case. Rather, one of the key pieces of evidence – and they’re not revealing any more – appears to be the suspect’s one-way, March 29 ticket to Cairo via London.
Counterterrorism detectives suggest he recently quit his job just so he could join a blacklisted terrorist group in Somalia. There, al-Shabaab insurgents have “a documented history of terrorist activities, atrocities if you will,” RCMP Inspector Keith Finn said at a news conference.
The counterterrorism detective said police have evidence showing Mr. Hersi was intent on enlisting with the al-Qaeda-linked group, adding that the militants indiscriminately kill women and children in pursuit of military goals.
The low-profile Mr. Hersi wasn’t known in Toronto as a firebrand or radical.
“People are shocked first of all,” Said Rageah, the imam at Toronto's Abu Huraira Centre, said in an interview. He said Mr. Hersi’s reputation is that of a quiet, studious and single young Somali of Yemeni descent. In 2009, he graduated from the University of Toronto’s Scarborough Campus with a four-year degree, with concentrations in science, psychology and community health.
Police say they spent six months investigating the case before making the arrest, but would not speak to details beyond saying they got considerable help from the “community.”
However, sources suggest police received a significant tip from what’s known as Canada’s “suspicious incident reporting system.”
This national database encourages people who work in critical sectors, such as energy utilities and mass transit systems, to phone in suspicious activities to local police. The Toronto Police Service’s Intelligence Unit – more familiar with gangs and drugs than international terrorism – is being credited for running down this lead, prior to presenting a well-developed case to federal counterparts.
The pre-emptive police measures to keep Mr. Hersi in Canada are influenced by the context of the past cases about suspects who got away. Dozens of young Western Muslims have lately disappeared from major cities in the West – Minneapolis, London, Berlin and Toronto – to flock to the front lines of Somalia, police say.
While al-Qaeda-influenced recruiters are selling the prospective militants on the notion that armed jihad overseas is a romantic religious duty, police see the recruits as a major danger to themselves – and others. Some have already been killed in Somalia, police say. Others might well return to the West as battle-hardened warriors – a prospect authorities dread.
Behind the scenes in Toronto, a host of professionals – police, imams, lawyers and parents – have lately had some success at interventions aimed at disabusing young fundamentalists of the notion that war is glamorous. Even so, al-Shabaab has succeeded in taking over much of Somalia, creating a haven for future recruits.
With a report from Tamara Baluja
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Who is al-Shabaab?
The fifth issue of al-Qaeda’s English-language Internet magazine, Inspire, was published this week. It contained one of its usual laudatory shout-outs to rebel Islamists in Somalia.
“The Shabab al-Mujihideen movement fed over 9,000 Somalian families,” reads the blurb. “…We ask Allah to grant them success.”
In the West, the al-Shabaab fighters are not known for their charitable work. Rather, the militia is known for its suicide bombing and assassination campaigns, in pursuit of its military objective of taking over war-torn Somalia.
The al-Shabaab insurgents are gaining ground as they garner a reputation for killing and maiming civilians. Lately, they’ve also taken to executing alleged adulterers, banning bells and confiscating gold and silver teeth – all part of their ever-more-puritanical take on sharia law.
It’s for this reason that many experts see the al-Shabaab as an East African reincarnation of the 1990s Taliban movement that swept across Afghanistan. Prior to those movements, both Somalia and Afghanistan had been relatively tolerant nations.
Despite the growing list of atrocities, the al-Shabaab movement continues to enlist recruits. Westerners who have joined the fighters have encouraged followers back home to come as well, portraying the fight as an obligatory battle for the glory of God.
Colin Freeze
