On June 15, 2023, Calgary law enforcement executed a search warrant at a residence, uncovering disturbing materials linked to extremist ideology: an ISIS flag prominently displayed, three knives potentially for use in violent acts, bomb-making instructions outlining techniques for constructing explosives, and ideological literature advocating violence against gay men.
“I’m a member of ISIS,” declared Zakarya Rida Hussein, the occupant responsible for the materials. He made this alarming confession on Snapchat while plotting a heinous attack timed to coincide with Calgary’s month-long Pride celebrations.
“Tomorrow my mission begins. It’s pride month,” he ominously posted, indicating the severity of his intentions.
ISIS is back, signaling a troubling resurgence of the terror group.
Five years after suffering a crushing defeat in Syria, the ultra-violent organization is once again gaining strength, posing what Canadian government officials have classified as a “resurgent threat to the West.”
A recent investigation by Global News has linked the notorious Islamic State to an alarming increase in terror-related investigations throughout Canada: Twenty suspects were apprehended in 2023 and 2024, a stark contrast to just two arrests recorded in 2022.
In this worrying trend, four additional ISIS supporters faced convictions in Canadian courts for crimes committed in prior years.
Youthful individuals like Hussein are fuelling the ISIS resurgence. At the age of twenty when arrested, he exemplifies the new wave of would-be ISIS operatives.
According to police and experts, today’s ISIS followers tend to be younger and increasingly engaged in social media and gaming platforms. These online spaces serve as fertile ground for forming connections with extremist propaganda, recruiters, and like-minded individuals.
For Hussein, platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat were instrumental in his communications, and he even exploited text messaging to threaten Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party of Alberta, as revealed in court documents.
“I’m gonna do a terrorist attack on you guys,” he ominously warned the UCP. “I’ll kill each and every one of you … I’ll blow you guys up with explosive,” laying bare his violent intentions.
“The Islamic State is everlasting.”
The counterterrorism investigation tailing his conviction led to three additional arrests among Calgary minors, with one suspect alarmingly young at just fifteen years.
In related incidents, police in Ottawa arrested another juvenile in December over a suspected bomb plot targeting the Jewish community in the capital, with an alleged accomplice also being underage.
The latest case involves a 20-year-old Pakistani foreign student residing in Toronto, accused of orchestrating a mass shooting aimed at a Brooklyn, N.Y. Jewish community center during the anniversary of the Hamas attack on October 7.
This worrying pattern extends to Europe, where three teenagers were apprehended for plotting an ISIS-inspired bombing at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.
In Phoenix, Arizona, a 17-year-old ISIS supporter was taken into custody on October 18 for allegedly planning a drone assault on the Phoenix Pride parade.
In July, the RCMP arrested a former employee of Amazon from Egypt alongside his son for allegedly conspiring to carry out an ISIS attack in Toronto, with the father being 62 years old.
Similarly, in that same month, Kimberly Polman, a 52-year-old British Columbia resident and Muslim convert who allegedly underwent ISIS training in Syria, was charged with two terrorism offenses.
Youth involvement in terrorism has historical precedent, dating back to 2014, when a 16-year-old was arrested in Montreal for committing robbery to fund his intent to join ISIS.
However, since the onset of 2023, nearly half of the suspects apprehended in Canada are under the age of 21, with six of them being minors.
As RCMP Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin, leading national security investigations, stated, “We’ve certainly seen more prevalence of youth being radicalized, or even mobilizing to violence,” in an exclusive interview.
She attributes this rise to their active presence on online forums and encrypted platforms that continually nourish their exposure to extremist propaganda.
Court documents indicate that Canadian youths inspired by ISIS have used various social media platforms, including TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, Reddit, and Facebook, to interact and absorb extremist narratives.
Moreover, Telegram and gaming platforms like Minecraft and Roblox serve as conduits where potential recruits can be approached and indoctrinated into extremist ideologies, according to Gauvin.
Gauvin has cautioned about the potential role of algorithms that curate the information individuals encounter; once someone demonstrates interest in a specific topic or site, they are often fed similar content continuously.
This increased exposure to propaganda has a significant potential to lead to radicalization.
Researchers tracking ISIS activity have reported younger individuals becoming involved at earlier ages, likely due to their earlier engagement with social media and messaging platforms.
Senior research fellow Aaron Zelin at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has noted, “It’s definitely something that I’ve noticed.”
He speculates that ISIS utilizes platforms like TikTok to disseminate their content, leveraging the platform’s design to allow such material to spread rapidly. Zelin adds, “And of course, the people on TikTok are younger and younger.”
Established in 2014 by former al-Qaeda members, ISIS rose to notoriety after seizing vast territories in Syria and Iraq, only to be thwarted in battle against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces.
The final territory held by ISIS in Syria was liberated in 2019, but the group did not completely vanish; instead, it shifted its activities globally and increasingly to online domains.
Prominent scholar Zelin explains that following the loss of its self-declared territory, ISIS transitioned to a global operating structure known as the General Directorate of Provinces.
This global framework has allowed ISIS to enhance coordination among its affiliates in regions like Afghanistan and Africa, where it maintains influence in four countries.
This decentralized organizational model fortifies ISIS’s resilience, and since 2022, it has regained significant momentum, with the escalating Hamas conflict since October 2023 fanning the flames of its resurgence.
Additionally, the ongoing geopolitical rivalry between Washington, Moscow, and Iran, which is aligned against the West, has complicated intelligence-sharing efforts.
“The ideology never went away,” Gauvin declared, asserting that ongoing creation and distribution of online propaganda is a contributing factor.
“Basically, it’s a generation where everybody does everything online. So that has helped ISIS maintain a virtual caliphate, if you wish.”
A review of recent cases in Canada linked to ISIS indicates that youths have engaged with online propaganda propagated by a select group of controversial influencers both from Canada and internationally.
Moreover, ISIS-K, the group’s branch in South Asia, has intensified its online propaganda efforts, encouraging attacks in Western nations.
Two assaults attributed to ISIS-K in 2023, occurring in Russia and Iran, are viewed as attempts by the group to regain media attention and attract new followers.
These incidents illustrate ISIS’s “increased desire to expand their efforts,” according to a report from the government’s Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre, released under the Access to Information Act.
“Not only do these two attacks demonstrate the potential for a violent threat to the West, they also enable extremist organizations to remain relevant amongst international supporters,” it elaborates.
Particularly, a high-profile incident such as the attack in Moscow is likely to lead to additional fundraising efforts, potentially yielding millions of dollars, or inspire individuals to attempt joining the group.
The report categorizes ISIS as a “persistent threat” to Canada, maintaining that the group will persist in its endeavors to incite attacks against Western interests.
The most probable outcome remains an attack orchestrated by a radicalized individual who adheres to ISIS ideology.
Such an assailant may become “further radicalized” by the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, which has potentially expedited a bomb plot against Jewish targets in Ottawa, the report suggests.
Evidence suggests that at least one individual arrested in the Ottawa case had contact with ISIS affiliates overseas, with the apprehensions coinciding with a period of heightened ISIS calls for violence in reaction to the ongoing conflict.
Even before this recent surge, ISIS remained active within Canada.
At precisely 7 p.m. on May 29, 2021, Anand Nath entered Chicken Land, a popular takeout restaurant situated in Mississauga, Ontario.
He drew a 9-mm handgun from his hoodie and opened fire on the Akl family, who owned the restaurant, in addition to their delivery driver, in a horrifying episode that underscored the dangers of extremism.
Remarkably, he spared only one family member, a 13-year-old girl who fortuitously happened to be working on homework in the kitchen, with a bullet narrowly missing her as it lodged itself in the industrial fridge beside her.
In a tragic 18-second encounter, Naim Akl was killed, while his family members endured injuries inflicted by gunfire to vital areas such as the face, arm, chest, and eye.
Investigations into the shooting traced the perpetrator back to Naqash Abbasi, a 34-year-old graduate of Sheridan College, known for both his charitable endeavors at his mosque and a history of violence, including a prior incident where he fired up to ten shots into a house where a witness was set to testify against his associate.
Abbasi operated a company named TryAlinc from a warehouse near Toronto’s Pearson airport. He had declared allegiance to ISIS, with the company suspected to be a funding front for the terrorist group.
He orchestrated the Chicken Land massacre after discovering that Naim Akl, one of his own employees, was intent on exposing the illicit operations to authorities.
Abbasi, Nath, and the getaway driver, Suliman Raza, who initiated online inquiries regarding the legal repercussions for getaway drivers, all faced convictions for their roles.
On October 3, Raza learned the answer to his queries: life imprisonment.
Among those detained were eight women who had joined ISIS in Syria, an alleged ISIS financier operating from Toronto, and Abdul Aziz Kawam, who was accused of fatally assaulting a transit bus passenger in Surrey, B.C. last year, followed by an alarming 9-1-1 call where he claimed to have committed the act for ISIS.
The RCMP also investigated Khaled Hussein of Edmonton. He was arrested in the UK last year for his ties to Al-Muhajiroun, alongside the terror group’s leader, the British pro-ISIS cleric Anjem Choudary.
Despite having been weakened since its catastrophic defeat in Syria and Iraq, ISIS did not fade away; it continued its attempts at resurgence, according to Antonio Giustazzi, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
“They kept trying and trying and trying,” he remarked, noting that this year has brought a noticeable difference as they achieved key successes from their perspective.
The attacks in Iran and Moscow obtained extensive media attention, allowing the terror group to assert that it was not finished, while simultaneously revitalizing its fundraising strategies, Giustazzi explained.
“They have the feeling that they turned a corner.”
ISIS seized upon the Hamas attack on Israel, issuing calls to target Jews via a propaganda release titled, “And Kill Them Wherever You Find Them.”
A significant portion of the plots executed since then has involved youths, with a U.S. study revealing that two-thirds of individuals arrested in Europe are between the ages of 13 and 19.
The FBI has noted that “the average age of the international and domestic terrorism subjects we investigate is under 21 years old,” highlighting the youthfulness of those involved.
Radicalization is occurring rapidly, with FBI acting special agent Nelson I. Delgado emphasizing that significant changes can occur in a mere few months.
Such trends are evident in Canada as well, prompting Gauvin to stress that parents must be vigilant regarding the gaming platforms and social media applications being utilized by their children.
“It’s crucial for parents, legal guardians, and adults in authoritative roles to pay attention to young people to ensure they receive appropriate guidance,” she stated.
RCMP intervention teams actively collaborate with community organizations, reaching out to individuals identified as being at risk of radicalization.
In cases where individuals are in the nascent stages of radicalization, the teams strive to prevent further development, while law enforcement handles investigations, arrests, and the promotion of de-radicalization.
“However, there are instances where individuals may have progressed too far down the radicalization path, and intervention may no longer be effective,” expressed the assistant commissioner.
Nonetheless, authorities make significant efforts to intervene when possible, especially with minors, often opting for intervention strategies over formal charges.
Family support plays a critical role in determining the effectiveness of such interventions, according to Gauvin.
To illustrate this, in the case of Mohamed Amine Assal, an 18-year-old from Montreal, police opted for a peace bond after arresting him in March 2023, partly informed by data provided by the FBI.
Allegations disclosed in Quebec court suggest that Assal frequented a mosque attended by individuals supportive of ISIS, leading him to reject Canada’s foundational liberal democratic principles.
His Instagram profile picture showcased the convicted British extremist preacher Anjem Choudary, and he primarily utilized Telegram for communication, along with some interactions on Facebook and Discord.
In his messages, Assal reportedly provided instructions for making explosive devices, translated ISIS propaganda, promoted the concept of “violent jihad,” and espoused terrorist acts, as asserted by the RCMP in an affidavit.
The RCMP maintained, “Mohamed Amine Assal advocates and promotes violence against non-Muslims.”
The terrorism peace bond imposed in November 2023 has mandated that the CEGEP student wear an ankle monitor for a duration of one year, despite not facing any criminal charges at this point.
– How can community engagement help in preventing youth radicalization and violent extremism?
Es-terrorism-related-offenses”>a recent arrest, the individual’s family was key in facilitating communication with intervention teams, ultimately contributing to a more favorable outcome in the intervention process.
the combination of community engagement, parental vigilance, and proactive law enforcement response is essential in addressing the concerning trend of youth radicalization and related violent extremism.
