Casting Blame

"They told us she had been interacting with people they thought were dangerous and were influencing her in a negative way, but they didn't give us enough information and it was all very vague."
"We all went to work, came home, all her stuff was gone. She had packed all her winter clothes, took her computer and left."
"If they had shown me the emails between my sister and this girl. If they had let me listen to the recordings of them planning on going places [it would have given the family more to act on]."
"I would have ripped her passport up. There's no way I would have let her leave if I knew now that she was going to the craziest war zone in the world."
Sister of young Muslim recruit to ISIS

"You know what, we can't be everywhere. We can't be everywhere at all times. To me, the news makes part of our community. And if we were to be involved in those things at earlier stages, things sometimes can change."
"And my concern always when it comes to any of these kinds of things, is people holding on to information prior to getting it to police."
"People are looking for things to belong to, whether that's (Somali terrorist group) al-Shabab or a gang. So no, it's just different and it's highlighted in the media right now."
"It is imperative we, as a police service and a society, look at terrorism and radicalization as extremist criminal behaviours."
"This criminal activity is not about placing blame on a specific race, religion, culture or community."

Insp. Dan Jones, RCMP investigative support branch

The family of the missing young woman who took the bait as an ISIS recruit finds fault with Canada's national police service, insisting that they were given insufficient information to adequately alert them to the potential of their family member's imminent departure from Canada to join Islamic State in Syria. But they were in fact notified and doubtless questioned as well. Having been informed that the police suspected the  young woman had been radicalized, what more information might the family have expected to have them take the initiative to tackle their family problem?

It is always easy to lash out at external sources. But the external sources in this instance as in so many others where the RCMP is held to blame by families of those radicalized in their local mosques or through the Internet, is those espousing the unsavoury tenets of their own religion. The young woman in question took an online course on Islam, and it was through that course that she is suspected of having been persuaded that her place is alongside the Islamist terrorists slaughtering their own whom they identify as apostates.

The manner in which the Muslim community itself responds to the threat within that targets their impressionable young men and women is telling in and of itself. The identity of the woman who ran that online course is known to the Muslim community. As she is to the police. She is evidently not held to have been doing anything illegal, for no charges have been brought against her. The mosque where she is connected simply requested that she leave in view of her recruiting for Islamic State. Protecting themselves, or protecting others?

And the family of this particular missing young woman wants heads to roll at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service which, they claim, insufficiently alerted them to the situation. In response, Edmonton police speak of building trust, engaging youth and working closely with community partners against radicalization, as their "strongest weapon". If the Muslim community itself, and more specifically its leaders and its mosque clerics are not sufficiently involved to counteract the effects of recruitment, their effectiveness in their alliance with intelligence services suffers.

Last weekend's release by al-Shabab of a video calling for local Muslims to engage themselves in violent acts targeting the city of Edmonton's largest mall, sent shivers of apprehension through the minds of locals. Anything is possible, and should there be local Muslims who find the appeal of the Islamists sufficiently attractive to want to emulate their destructive violence in Africa or the Middle East, there is little to stop them from attempting to become blessed martyrs in the cause of jihad.

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  Yahoo Canada News - Mahad Hirsi and Hamsa Kariye are two of three Edmonton men believed killed last fall while fighting for ISIS.(CBC image/Yahoo Canada News via Twitter/@H20x8Daily)

Much depends on the success of the Muslim communities c-operating with police. Or is the supposed alliance of co-operation seen as a betrayal? A religious demographic that has in the past viewed Canadian intelligence and security authorities with suspicion and mistrust. Three Edmonton men died while fighting for Islamic State last fall. If the Muslim community from which they came view that as a sacrifice for a cause they believe in, little can be done to persuade them otherwise.