Terrorism Abounds in Pakistan

Rescue workers transport one of the many injured victims of the bomb explosion at a mosque in Islamabad on Friday. (M.A. Sheikh/The Associated Press)

 

"By the time I reached it there had already been an explosion."

"Bodies were lying everywhere, some were missing arms, some missing legs."

"We took the most injured in our own vehicle [to hospital]." 

Mosque caretaker Syed Ashfaq  

"The morning of February 6, a suicide bomber attacked a Shia mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan. The attack risks worsening regional instability amid a deteriorating security situation in Pakistan. Early reports suggest the attack was carried out by a single actor, who opened fire at security personnel outside a mosque before entering and detonating a suicide vest. In an official statement, Islamabad’s deputy commissioner announced that 31 people had been killed, with another 169 people hospitalized locally, but the death toll is likely to rise."

"No group has yet claimed the attack. Pakistan is home to an enormous variety of terrorist organizations: U.S. officials have identified at least 15 groups, while the Indian nonprofit South Asian Terrorism Portal has listed 44 terrorist organizations operating in the country. Most terrorist violence in Pakistan is associated with three actors: the Islamic State, Baloch militants, and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The most likely perpetrator appears to be the Islamic State–⁠Khorasan Province (IS-KP), which operates both in Afghanistan and Pakistan but has a significant interest in mass-casualty international attacks. The group has been implicated in a variety of recent international attacks and plots, including mass-casualty attacks against Crocus City Hall in Moscow and a memorial for Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Tehran, and plots against the Paris Olympics, cathedrals in Cologne and Vienna, and protests outside of the Swedish parliament."

Center for Strategic and International Studies  

"[India -- Pakistan's eastern neighbour was] assisting the Taliban regime and threatening not only Pakistan but regional and global peace."

"[Pakistan takes strong exception to the situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban regime has created conditions similar to or worse than pre-9/11, when terror organizations posed threats to global peace." 

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari

Photo: Aamir QURESHI / AFP via Getty Images

 

Tension between Pakistan and the Taliban government next door are high, as Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of supporting Pakistan's own Taliban. How things have changed; before and during the U.S.-led, UN-approved invasion of Afghanistan by NATO forces following the 9/11 atrocities in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania it was Pakistan  through its military and its Inter-agency Intelligence group that supported and gave haven to the Afghan Taliban, at the very time that it declared itself in league with the U.S. in combating terrorism.

 

Afghanistan was invaded by the combined Western forces led by the U.S. because the-then-governing Taliban was sheltering al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden. Refusing to surrender Osama bin Laden, known to have been the mastermind of 9/11, a 20-year conflict was launched when the U.S. sought the elusive al-Qaeda leader in the mountains of Afghanistan. It was, in fact, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, at a secret compound, where U.S. Navy Seal commandos found bin Laden and killed him.

 

That compound was not far from a Pakistan army base. It was clear that Pakistan's military knew of the presence of the secretive head of al-Qaeda and likely facilitated his stay there. Next to the compound lived a Pakistani medical doctor who suspected that his neighbour was the infamous bin Laden, and in the belief that his country was in league with the U.S. to discover his whereabouts, he confirmed to the U.S. that the man whose suspicious presence was thought to be bin Laden, really was.

 

For his efforts, Shakil Afridi, the Pakistan physician who had been so helpful to the U.S. was later arrested, charged and convicted in a Pakistan court of treason, and sentenced to 33 years in prison. So much for Pakistan's double game of supporting the war on terrorism while enabling it and giving haven to its leaders. It's fairly rich that now, the country overrun with terrorist groups, portrays itself as an innocent victim. 

 

Thousands gathered in Islamabad to mourn the 32 victims of Friday's attack   Reuters

 

Pakistan accuses India of planning terrorist attacks on Pakistan's soil, but it was a Pakistani terrorist group, Lashkar e-Taiba that conducted a 2008 attack on India's financial hub in Mumbai. A dozen coordinated attacks took place over a period of three days of chaos and violence. Fire, grenade attacks and gunfire took its terror-toll of over $1-billion in damage. No fewer than 166 innocent people died in that series of attacks, with some 300 people wounded. India has much to blame Pakistan for; not the other way around.

 

Last Friday's suicide bombing that took place at a Shiite mosque killing 31 worshippers and wounding 169 was the work of Pakistan's own Islamic State terrorist group, which in fact claimed the glory for the gore it had created. The assertion by Pakistan that terrorism cannot be confronted by any single country in isolation, arrived after global reaction condemning the attack, but Pakistan's role in aiding and abetting terrorists that prey on other countries reveals them for the hypocrites that they are.

 

The government in Afghanistan responded to the claims from Pakistan by proclaiming its innocence in the affair. Its focus is on terrifying its own population, which apparently takes up all its energies, particularly addicted to characterizing women as somewhat subhuman whose role is to complement male desires and to produce following generations, with no self-agency, no rights, no access to education or personal fulfillment. 

 

Police commandos take positions at the site of a bomb explosion at a mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, on Friday. (Anjum Naveed/The Associated Press)

 

Both New Delhi and Afghanistan's Defence Ministry separately rejected the allegation of the Pakistan government, decrying Islamabad's irresponsibility. The Taliban in Afghanistan, returned to government with the withdrawal of U.S. forces and its allies in 2011, has continued its persecution of its  population and is itself the locus of the presence of other terrorist groups, including ISIS. The Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, has also denied any link to the mosque bombing. 

 

Pakistan's security forces arrested four suspects, among them an Afghan national accused of links to the IS group in Afghanistan, said to have assisted in masterminding the attack. The bomber's mother and brother-in-law have evidently also been detained, with the investigation ongoing. 

 

Islamic State Thrives and Lives On Globally

Twenty-one years after its founding in 2004 and eleven years since declaring a caliphate in 2014, the Islamic State’s territorial presence in Iraq and Syria has diminished significantly. At its height, the organisation fielded up to 80,000 militants, including more than 42,000 foreign terrorist fighters from over 120 countries. In contrast, by mid-2025, estimates suggest only 1,500 to 3,000 fighters remain active in Syria and Iraq.  

Despite the Islamic State having shrunk in the Middle East, its global presence has expanded significantly, and by the end of 2024, the Islamic State remained the deadliest terrorist organisation in the world. Since the loss of its self-proclaimed Caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2019, and some 60,000 combatants, the organisation has undergone radical structural and operational changes. In 2025, the Islamic State relies primarily on a dynamic network of regional affiliates who operate with a greater autonomy of action than ever before."

The Islamic State’s digital operations in 2025 remain a key pillar of its strategy to maintain global influence, project power, and advance its ideological and operational goals. The organisation  effectively exploits social media platforms and encrypted messaging tools to disseminate propaganda, radicalise, and recruit supporters, particularly targeting younger demographics who are both most active online and vulnerable to radicalisation. 

International Centre for Counter-Terrorism

AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed

 

"With the events of last weekend — an Islamic State (IS) attack in Palmyra, Syria that killed three Americans and an IS-inspired (or directed, pending further investigation) terror attack in Sydney, Australia targeting a Hanukkah celebration that killed 15, the Islamic State is once again back in the headlines."

"One of the most frequently asked questions from journalists and the media was, does this suggest the beginning of a new wave of IS attacks across the globe? In truth, nobody knows."

"But the attacks were less about a resurgence of IS, and more a reflection of a longstanding reality — the group has not been defeated and will remain a major counterterrorism challenge for the foreseeable future."

The Soufan Center 

One of the three men arrested in Toronto charged with hate-motivated extremism targeting women and members of the Jewish community last week, 26-year-old Waleed Khan faces ISIS-linked terrorism charges. Khan conspired with "persons known and unknown" in Toronto and elsewhere in Ontario to commit murder, according to the RCMP. It appears fairly reasonable to comprehend from this that Islamic State-linked extremists dedicated to jihad make their homes in Canada. 

 

Earlier occurrences in Montreal and Newmarket respecting ISIS-related arrests, make this most recent one in Toronto, a third in what appears to be a growing series where since 2023, 23 such arrests have taken place in Canada. Mere days ago an ISIS attack in Syria killed three U.S. soldiers, while an ISIS-inspired attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney saw 15 people killed and 40 wounded. A reminder to the world that the Islamic State Caliphate has morphed from a since-routed territory within Syria and Iraq to the far more difficult-to-expunge minds of aspiring Islamist jihadists where the Internet plays a central role in radicalizing young Muslims.

 

Australian PM: Bondi Beach Atrocity inspired by ISIS

 

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has ventured an estimate of at minimum 200 individuals with connections to Canada travelled overseas to serve as fighters, recruiters, fundraisers and propagandists in league with Islamic State in its heyday. The agency warned early in 2025 of its "increasing...concern" for the risk of ISIS-inspired attacks at  home. A Canadian has been identified as one of the group's most notorious online propagandists. The kind of propaganda appealing to restless young man prone and prey to self-radicalization as "lone-wolf" terrorists eager to make their mark striking anywhere.

 

The psychologically corrosive allure of violent action in a cause believed to be divine, with the faithful of Islam responding to one of the major faith edicts of jihad, promises a role for those willing and able to weaponize the grievances of victimhood and nowhere at present is that target of lethal vengeance more alive than in Israel's military response in Gaza to the Palestinian terrorist attack of 7 October 2023; a flashpoint of rage and retribution. 

 

Waleed Khan, Osman Azizov and Fahad Sadaat are facing a combined total of 79 charges according to police, including attempted kidnapping with a firearm and sexual assault with a weapon, police say. Khan is also accused of funding ISIS and aiding terrorist activity, the RCMP said. (Toronto Police Service/YouTube)

 

As the most recent arrests to take place in Canada demonstrate, terrorism's allure is increasingly for the young to incite violence within their own areas of domicile where governments tend to be lenient in their response to the destabilizing, socially divisive solitary and group actions of the disaffected demographic that reacts compulsively to the prods of incitement that claim Israel has mounted a genocide against the people of 'Palestine'. Clamouring for Israel's destruction from afar has its satisfying long-range echoes, but Jew-hate can be practised anywhere and in Canada, the ongoing 'pro-Palestinian', anti-Israel marches target the Jewish contingent in the country for a 'Final Solution'. 

 

Deviations from a crowd mentality are those lone wolves who strike out to commit violent acts of terror; acts as wide-ranging as fire-bombing synagogues, firing at Jewish parochial schools, vandalizing Jewish community centers and Jewish businesses, and now the most recently revealed pursuits, hunting down Jewish women with the intention of kidnapping and sexual assaults. Petty and disturbing incidents of ripping mezuzahs (small metal lozenges containing sacred scrolls) commonly placed on Jewish door posts, are disconcertingly frightening for the elderly residents in targeted homes.

 

And yet, through all these warning signs, along with the rising decibel of fear and loathing, Canadian authorities at all levels cling to inaction. Failure to make use of existing laws against public disorder, threats, violence and instigation of acts of violence have served to embolden those who continue to slanderously stigmatize others, threaten their peace of mind and deviate when it suits them from targeting Canadian Jews, to harass shoppers at Christmas markets, or enter Jewish-owned businesses to confront those shopping there. 

 

The Government of Canada recently announced additions to its terrorist list. A year ago it added Samidoun, yet it still permits the terrorist entity to operate its foreign affiliates out of Vancouver. 

 

The Government of Canada is taking action to counter terrorism and violent extremism, in particular the radicalization of young people online, by adding four new organizations to the Criminal Code list of terrorist entities. These measures help protect Canadians and communities from intimidation, hate, and acts of violent extremism and terrorism.

Today, the Honourable Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety, announced the addition of the following groups: 764, Maniac Murder Cult, Terrorgram Collective, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as Daesh) affiliate Islamic State-Mozambique.

Under Canada's Criminal Code, these organizations are now legally defined as "terrorist groups". This gives Canadian law enforcement and security agencies stronger tools to prevent and disrupt terrorist activity. Key implications include:

• All property owned by these groups in Canada must be frozen and reported to CSIS or the RCMP.
• It is a criminal offence for anyone in Canada and Canadians abroad to knowingly deal with property belonging to a listed terrorist group.
• Providing property or financial services that benefit these groups is also prohibited.
• Immigration and border officials can use this listing to inform decisions on admissibility under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

764, Maniac Murder Cult and Terrorgram Collective are transnational ideologically motivated violent extremist (IMVE) networks. They use social media and online gaming platforms to recruit and radicalize individuals, spread propaganda and violent extremist narratives, and incite violence both online and offline. Canada is the first country to list 764 as a terrorist entity, taking a leadership position in combatting the significant threat of IMVE and fighting against emerging terrorist trends. Listing these groups helps Canada protect the safety and security of Canadians, including children and vulnerable populations, against terrorism and violent extremism.

Islamic State-Mozambique (IS-M) is an official ISIS branch. It is an armed insurgent group based in Mozambique seeking to replace the governing authority with Sharia-based governance by seizing territory, infiltrating civilian populations and security forces, and committing violent acts of terrorism.

Listing these entities will help Canadian security, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies in combatting their crimes and terrorist activities, and make our communities safer.

Government of Canada, December 10, 2025

 

Washington Institute for Near-East Policy

 

 

Canada's Wannabe Jihadi-Wives

"With Canadians lining up in food banks in record numbers and struggling with housing costs, the Liberal government must answer for why they spend $170,000 on lavish costs to repatriate reported ISIS criminals."

"The fact that these items were purchased for those detained as alleged terrorists is appalling in itself."

"[The opposition is] calling for the committee to be immediately recalled to launch a full inquiry into this matter."

Conservative Party letter to federal government 

 

"Such spending raises serious questions about government priorities, public trust, and the integrity of our system."

"[The return of foreign fighters who left to join terrorist groups should prioritize public safety], not reward those who betrayed their country and broke the law."

"[We are] deeply troubled [by the] extravagant homecoming [the women received]."

"Victims’ families have had to pay their own way to attend legal proceedings related to the terror suspects accused of killing their loved ones."

"The stark contrast between how our government treats perpetrators and how it treats their victims should alarm every Canadian and offend every taxpayer."

Sheryl Saperia, CEO, Secure Canada 

 

"[ISIS] still poses a significant threat via its network of provinces, affiliates, related loose online networks, and due to its ability to inspire Canada-based threat actors to commit serious acts of violence."

Canadian Security Intelligence Service 

 

"The Liberal government needs to be held accountable for the way it throws away our money and wastes hard earned tax dollars, giving rewards and luxuries to people who betrayed our country."

"We want to make sure that we’re getting to the bottom of it so this money can’t be wasted in the future."

"[The women should be asked to repay the costs of their repatriation]. They made the decision to go and join and marry into the worst terrorist network in the world, and they should pay the full costs of getting back to Canada."

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre  

The Al-Hawl Camp, where most of the families capture during the fight against ISIS are detained.

 

When the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was in its expanding Caliphate heyday, a number of Canadian women travelled to the Middle East to reach Iraq and Syria where their steadily expanding empire was located, answering the call to jihad, to link up with the  terrorists as wives to produce children they called the 'lion cubs' of ISIL jihad, and to take part in the propaganda aimed at Western audiences in their bid to inspire more Muslims abroad in the diaspora to respond to the call of jihad.

 

Once the Islamic State lost their momentum of terror-inspired power, when the Kurdish Peshmerga aligned with U.S. and Western military forces began to gain the upper hand, wrenching territory back from their grasp, and eventually defeating the Islamic State whose members were either taken prisoner or escaped elsewhere to attempt to restore their caliphate mission elsewhere, recruit among Muslims in Africa and Afghanistan, rearm and inspire terror once again, Kurdish forces undertook a temporary imprisonment of foreign Islamic State fighters, creating a separate prison for their women and children.

 

The U.S. state department reported in 2023 that 14 countries including Canada repatriated 3,500 citizens, and overall, about 7,000 family members of foreign fighters representing 30 countries were brought back to their countries of origin. More than half of those held in the Kurdish-guarded prison camps were under age 12; the U.S. bureau of counterterrorism warning that if they remained they would be vulnerable to ISIS recruitment, likely fuelling a resurgence in the Middle East. An argument that spurred Western nations to reluctantly repatriate their wayward citizens.

 

Thanks to the federal Access to Information law, an investigative journalist, Stewart Bell with Global News was able to reveal that Canada's Liberal government used over $170,000 of taxpayer funding to retrieve a handful of Canadian women and their children who had gone overseas to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Costs for hotel bills in Montreal were included for the returnees and their government escorts. When the details were revealed, Parliament's Conservative opposition called for an expenditures investigation.

 

Expense reports released under Access to Information Act on costs of repatriating Canadian ISIS women and their kids. Global News

 

The initial round of repatriations completed in October of 2022, came with a cost of $10,863 when Canadians Kimberly Polman and Oumaima Chouay were returned. Polman faces charges of terrorism, while Chouay pleaded guilty a month ago to a charge of participating in the activities of a terrorist group. In April of 2023 the second operation incurred $132,746 in expenses that included government staff and the ISIS returnees. $20,331 went for 23 hotel rooms at the Marriott Hotel at the Montreal Airport. That included room-service invoices and a $3,000 catering tab.

 

Four returning Canadian women, three of whom on arrival were arrested and their ten children comprised the returnees. Emontonian Aimeee Lucia Vasconez, married to two different ISIS fighters was in that group while Ammara Amjad also in the group was arrested and faces a charge of terrorism. One room cost $1,100 which included the original room cost of $638 and $95-worth of wine, a $105 room-service meal and $87-worth of items from the hotel gift store that included chocolate, chips and over-the-counter drugs. 

 

A tip of $7 on  a $8 coffee came from that same room while $15-worth of children's ice cream was from another room, and a third had ordered drinks of white, red and sparkling wine at $25 each. Two $24 smoked meat sandwiches came from yet another room. Early July 2023 saw the third repatriation operation proceed, which cost over $27,500 when a government of Canada employee -- likely with Global Affairs -- expense-purchased snacks including goldfish and granola bars, and Timbits. In that operation, Montreal hotel rooms cost about $2,300. 

 

Two women from Edmonton, Dina Kalouti and Helena Carson were in that group; both sentenced to six-month peace bonds, required to continue counselling with the Organization for the Prevention of Violence. Needless to say, none of these operations began in Montreal; there was a journey from the Al-Hol camp in Syria to reach Montreal; the cost of the air flights were not included in the total expenditure figures released by Global Affairs through the Access to Information legislation. Nor the cost associated for government employees to fly out to Syria to escort these women and their children back to Canada.

 

Kimberly Polman is greeted by family members after being released from custody at provincial court in Chilliwack, B.C., on October 27, 2022. Polman was repatriated to Canada from a detention camp in Syria after marrying an ISIS member. Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press

 

Inspired to Fight ISIL

"There was no one event that motivated me. Seeing evil beyond evil, the video of the Canadian guy (John Maguire) joining ISIL, the fact that governments weren't doing anything about it. And then I learned about what the Kurds were doing, and I flew to Iraq."
"It was really tranquil and beautiful [mountain camp] and it reminded me of the Okanagan. There were little caves and little huts, hidden in the trees in the hills. I could spend a lot of time there."
"I had considered joining the Canadian Army, but what I was looking for was exactly what I was doing in Rojava [Syria, with the YPJ, Kurdish women's defence forces]. I didn't want to sit around for years in Edmonton or Ottawa."
"About an hour later, [post night-time firefight] there was all kinds of cheering -- it was impressive. The next day, I found out the village we were in was in shooting distance of (enemy) snipers, only 500 metres from the enemy."
"The air strikes would hit their position [U.S.-led airstrikes against ISIL], and then we'd run in and capture or kill the Daesh [ISIL fighters]. Most of the time, they would run away."
"ISIL fighters would sneak up and we could hear them, but not see them. They had night vision [goggles], but we didn't. They could be just across the street. But it didn't bother me. I thought about why it didn't bother me, and that's just how I am."
"The air strikes are really the terrifying thing. I've seen what it does to bodies. Getting killed in an air strike wouldn't be so bad. But being caught in a collapsed building or buried alive, crushed or suffocated ....
"I saw bodies, and bits of bodies. I helped kill people. But I forget those things. What sticks in my mind are the Kurds. Canadians have a reputation for being friendly, but I don't think they are. They're just polite. But the Kurds are so unbelievably friendly and nice and egalitarian."
Hanna Bohman, Vancouver

Courtesy of Hanna Bohman   Hanna Bohman, from Vancouver, spent five months fighting ISIS with the Kurdish women's defence forces, known as the YPJ, in northern Syria. She has returned to Canada.

Tough Islamic State fighters rushing off in panic rather than be confronted by fierce Kurdish women fighters of the Kurdish women's defence forces, the YPJ. After all, in ancient history and legend a race of women warriors became famous for their ferocious fighting skills. The Amazons were a fighting force to be reckoned with, said to have come out of Turkey, women whose endurance, strength and capability as fighters were second to none.

Achilles slaying Penthesileia, Athenian black figure
amphora 6th B.C., British Museum, London

During the Trojan war, Achilles met the Amazon Queen Penthesileia in combat. He had almost met his match in combat strength and agile skill in that skirmish. Legend has it that her beauty dazzled him, but in the heat of battle he mastered her fighting capability by his own legendary skill, and killed her. And then mourned her death, returning her body from the battlefield to be buried with respect and honours as a valiant warrior and a women of outstanding physical appeal. Kurdish women carry on the tradition.

Vancouverite Hanna Bohman, who had once earned a living as a fashion model, persuaded herself that travelling to Syria to join the Kurdish women's fighting force was more suited to her temperament and system of values than more pedestrian occupations she viewed as having little value. She spent four months after crossing from Iraq into Northern Syria to fulfill a wish to be of assistance to people fighting a barbarous tide of jihadists.

She, and ten other Westerners were dispatched across a river in a rubber dinghy in the middle of the night, for basic training. Training consisted primarily of disassembling weapons and piecing them together, and before long she was taken to the front "which was a lot more fun", she said. One of several Canadians who decided to throw in their lot, however temporarily, with the courageous Kurdish defenders against Islamic State incursion into Kurdistan, she gave the dangers inherent in her decision short shrift.

Hanna Bohman became known as Hevi Piling to the Kurds. She spent the first month on sentry duty to look out for suicide trucks, a favourite tactic that Islamic State uses, sending in an explosives-laden truck to crash through barricades, driven by an Islamist fanatic prepared to become honourably martyred. She was uniformed as a fighter, in camouflage fatigues, with a Canadian flag sewn on the shoulder of the jacket.

At the front, the first night premiered a firefight outside the women's sleeping quarters. Despite the sound of gunfire nearby, none of the women were fazed and weren't roused by the duty guard. She soon became accustomed to tolerating the proximity of fighting to wherever she happened to be stationed. She saw a man shot twice in the leg, a temporary casualty that medical attention would normally soon remedy. But in Rojava, she said, no medevac exists.

She also witnessed a young boy she judged to be around 14, fighting alongside his father for ISIL, who was hit by an air strike and was killed by a head injury. She remembers things that would shake the mental equilibrium of most people, and it's primarily the reason that people come away from these experiences with post-traumatic stress syndrome, but she shrugs off these events; they happen and you move on. What does stick with her is the generosity and kindness of the Kurds, that she experienced.

Moreover, she was impressed that in a geographic area where women are oppressed, the women's brigade in Rojava is viewed as equal to that of the men's. Men and women fighters are interchangeable in combat positions. Now, the Kurds, who have met the ISIL challenges head on, and who have worked alongside the U.S.-led coalition in a tandem of cooperative strategy to beat back Islamic State, have another enemy to contend with. Turkey has declared war on Kurdish fighters.

The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development party, has emphasized their classification of Kurdish militias -- particularly the Turkish PKK with whom it has been long at war as separatists -- as terrorists, no less so, as far as Ankara is concerned, than the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. And so, under the guise of being a member of NATO fulfilling its obligation to fight Islamic State, Turkey is aiming its guns primarily at the Kurds.

"I think about going back a lot. I miss my friends there and I worry about them and it felt like a real purpose. Here in Canada, I feel like I'm sucking air -- not doing anything that matters", she told an interviewer.

Courtesy of Hanna Bohman

Mistaken Identity/The Fog of Conflict

"[Kurds at the outpost that night were] legitimately concerned about an additional attack by ISIS, similar to the one they'd experienced the night before."
"Our [Canadian instructors] presence at or near the forward positions remains the exception and definitely not the rule."
"He was looking at Canadians, but he saw what he thought was an ISIS infiltration and attack on his position. [The Kurdish combatant] did not wake up in the morning wanting to kill a Canadian soldier."
Canadian special forces commander Brig.-Gen. Mike Rouleau

"[Two separate investigations held responsible] mistaken identity and a breakdown in communication in a setting characterized by tension, fatigue and confusion."
"[Investigators concluded that Sgt.Andrew Joseph Doiron] performed his job to the highest standards both prior to and throughout the incident [and the Canadians] conducted their operations appropriately and in concert with all pre-approved and accepted protocols."
"It was also determined that no Arabic was spoken by [Doiron's team] on the approach to the final position that night, and that Arabic was only spoken after the accident, during the co-ordination of the medevac."
Investigative report on 'mistaken identity' tragedy

Corporal Levarre McDonald 8 Wing Imaging    A repatriation ceremony for Sergeant Andrew Doiron at CFB Trenton on March 10, 2015.

 

When four Canadian soldiers were fired upon by their Kurdish counterparts on March 6, killing their leader, St. Andrew Joseph Doiron and injuring others, shock and dismay ensued on both sides. At the time, a Kurdish commander had been quoted as suggesting that blame for the unfortunate incident was attributable to the fact that the Canadians had approached "the fighting without our co-ordination", and that since the Canadians had spoken in Arabic "leading the peshmerga to believe they were ISIL militants", they were shot.

Dozens of Canadian commandos, specialized in conflict situations were in northern Iraq to help Kurdish fighters in their conflict with the Islamic State. The outpost in question had been under attack the night before, when though several ISIS jihadis were killed, the Kurds also took losses. Early that day the Canadians had been asked by the Kurds to help fortify the position, and they agreed they would return later that night, to do just that.

In the interim the original Kurdish fighters who had requested Canadian help, were withdrawn, with a replacement group moving into the position. The new group, knowing what had occurred the night before with a deadly ISIS attack were nervous, and no one had explained to them the agreement made earlier in the day with the Canadian soldiers. When the Canadian special forces team headed by Sgt. Doiron moved in the dark toward the defended position they noted the presence of a Kurdish fighter on a rooftop.

Simultaneously, the Kurd noted the presence of the four Canadians approaching their position. Sgt. Doiron called out a pre-arranged coded greeting to assure the Kurds that it was the Canadian group coming closer. In response the Canadians could hear the sound of a weapon being cocked: "Wow, wow, wow, Canada!", called out Sgt. Doiron. Whereupon the Kurdish fighter opened fire hitting the sergeant while the others dived for cover.

And then a machine gun was brought into action, bullets flooding from the Kurdish outpost that the Canadians had been approaching as had been pre-arranged earlier that same day. Each time the three Canadian soldiers attempted to retrieve their fallen comrade, the Kurds opened fire again, finally hitting the other three Canadians as well. In the melee that ensued, the Canadians held their fire. And then the Kurds understood that they had fired in error.

They collected Sgt. Doiron and the rest of the team into vehicles and drove to where a helicopter could evacuate them for medical treatment. It was too late, however, to save Sgt. Doiron. Now Canadian military officials have made public the details of exactly what had occurred, releasing a summary of two separate investigations. It was revealed that the Canadian team had encountered a pack of wild dogs as they made their way to the outpost.


The barking that ensued, according to Brig.-Gen. Rouleau "likely further heightened already high Kurdish anxiety levels." Now, in the wake of that unfortunate blight in the co-operation between the Kurdish peshmerga and Canadian instructors, Canadian soldiers in Iraq are permitted to move at night only when escorted by a Kurdish soldier.

That "friendly fire" incident appears to be a standard in all theatres of war; accidents that simply don't seem to be preventable in the confusion that always accompanies such events, when nervous soldiers standing guard occasionally pull the trigger, intimidated by what they are uncertain of, determined to evade facing an enemy, with dire consequences, as a result of not being sufficiently alert.

Allahu Akbar!

"They did not want to let him leave because if he comes back, he might be caught by the Israelis and tell them what he had seen. So they wanted to get rid of him."
"I know my son. I raised him well. I am sure he’s not working for the Mossad."
"[19-year-old Mohamed said to his parents] They promised a lot of things, and then I came here and there is nothing."
Said Musalem, East Jerusalem

Said and Hind Musalam, parents of a man who appeared to be executed by a child soldier in a recent ISIS video, mourn their son

"Here are the young lions of the caliphate."
"They will kill the one sent by the foolish Mossad to spy on the secrets of the mujahideen and the Muslims."
"I say to those who come to spy on the Islamic State, you won’t succeed at all."
Islamic State killing video

A screen grab from the Islamic State video purporting to show a child executing Mohamed Said Ismail Musalam.

"They said, [Mossad] ‘We’ll give you a monthly salary, we’ll give you a house and we’ll take care of any issues you have, as well as your living needs when you return'."
Mohamed Said Ismail Musalem, Palestinian Israeli, prisoner of ISIS

The latest propaganda video proudly unveiled by Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham cleverly geared to once again elicit admiration from the ranks of would-be jihadists and maximum revulsion by the rest of the world. With the victim, a young Israeli-Palestinian ostensibly 'admitting' he was a Mossad agent, and that his parents and his brother encouraged him to become that agent. "A spy of 19? How is that possible? Why would he have gone there if he were a spy?", wept his mother Hind Musalam.

No mind, it makes for great entertainment for Islamofascists, sweeping non-involved Israel and Jews into the same basket that holds those actively engaged in combat against the Islamic State, from the U.S.-led airstrike coalition, to the Iranian al-Quds Republican Guard Corps, and the Shi'ite militias along with the Iraqi military attempting to unseat Islamic State from its third of Iraq it now squats within. The irony is that the burning antipathy toward Jews is shared by Iran, Iraq and the Shia militias.

The United States administration sees a hopeful sign amongst the tragedies playing out with ISIS slaughtering Yazidis and uprooting Christian heritage along with the ancient Assyrian heritage of relics from the far distant past. They see signs of the summary execution of ISIS recruits who are attempting to defect and depart from the field of combat. Apart from wishful thinking, small comfort to those who are so horribly afflicted by their vicious presence.

While the French authorities are on the cusp of certainty in identifying the French-accented man who accompanied a young boy lauded as the new generation of Islamic State fighters coolly shooting the orange-clad Israeli-Arab at close range. Investigators feel the man is a half-brother to the extremist who attacked a Jewish parochial school in 2012 killing seven people and paratroopers in southern France, Mohamed Merah.

Jews remain the target of favour by French extremists, some 1,400 of whom are held to have left France to fight for Islamic State as slaughter-loving, women-enslaving jihadis. In France, one atrocity after another inflicted upon French Jews by Islamist fanatics heeding the message of the Koran and the Hadiths to kill Jews wherever they are found. 

Quran (9:29) - "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

Never too early in life to begin training for martyrdom, as proven by the adolescent boy who never falters in his exalted post as executioner of a man only a few years older than himself. The murdered young man's father insisting his son was no Israeli spy, but tricked into joining Islamic State, then regretting his decision. Unfortunately that regret came with a price so steep he will never again commit to a life-altering decision.

Quran (5:33) - "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement"