The city of Toronto was slightly shaken this past week when a man was arrested at Pearson International Airport for terrorism charges, due to his affiliations with Al Shabaab, a terrorist group in Somalia. And while this may have been the first time many had even heard of the group, it’s been infiltrating Canada and the United States for some time, and is an organization that is slowly but surely taking citizens of those countries to come join the organization. What’s even more frightening is that this terrorist group seems to now be focusing on recruiting women, and this news seems to have people more scared than ever, as it shows that the group has shifted their focus from recruiting only men.
Two women have been identified so far as leaving Canada to join the Al Shabaab in Somalia. These women were aged 18 and 20 and they disappeared in the middle of the night, leaving entire families behind that had no idea where or why they had gone. Since their disappearance, the girls have emailed home a few times, only to tell their parents that they were fine and that they didn’t want their parents coming to look for them. The girls have emailed several other times after that, but that’s been the extent of the communication.
The news that the Al Shabaab is now getting recruits from Canada is troubling, and our neighbours to the south are also facing the same issues. In 2010 two Somalia-American women were charged for eliciting funds from individuals in order to send back to the terrorist group. After they were indicted it was also found that these women were also doing fundraising in Canada to support the organization. The Somali Six was another group that was known to be supporting the Al Shabaab and trying to seek funds for them. This group was all men, but they all vanished in 2009 much the same way the young women did earlier this year.
Omar Jamal, who works with the United Nation’s Somalia mission, has expressed great worry about how the Al Shabaab now seems to be infiltrating Canada and the United States, and taking citizens of these countries to go and take up arms with a terrorist group. Jamal says that the Al Shabaab is focusing more on women now than on young men because it’s believed that they are more dedicated and more loyal.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service is currently working to find the location of the two girls who disappeared in January, and they’re always working to find new ways that these groups are infiltrating Canada; right now it seems to have much to do with the presence that they carry online. Tahera Mufti, a spokesperson for the agency, said in an interview that while the agency is always trying to identify and persecute anyone who’s a threat to Canada, they will not release details on any of the operations put in place to do so.
