June 20, 2006

Toronto-area man who knew some of the 17 people charged in connection with an alleged bomb plot in Ontario says one had some fairly extreme views. Mohammed Robert Heft claims Faheem Ahmad thought the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington were a good thing for Islam. Heft converted to Islam in his twenties. He says he fell briefly into a radical religious mindset but then regained his perspective. That’s when he started helping troubled Muslims at a Scarborough, Ont., shelter. He says he knows five of the suspects facing terrorism-related charges, some of whom came to the shelter. He never heard any of them advocate violence against Canadians, but he says he had a long and disturbing debate with Ahmad, 21, two months ago outside of a Scarborough mosque. “He believed the 19 people involved in the World Trade Center bombings were martyrs and he was handing out DVDs openly of wills and testimonies of those 19 people suggesting what they did was right,” said Heft. ... (BUT he never heard anyone advocate violence) Heft says a lot of young Muslims are angry and extremism is prevalent in the Toronto area. They get upset when they hear of alleged atrocities overseas in places like Iraq. “People get emotional. Imagine if somebody came into your house and raped your family, or by mistake just blew up your family, you’d get a little angry. I mean we get angry ... when the water isn’t hot in Canada or we lose our electricity for a day. So imagine what these people overseas are going through.” Heft knows personally about the road to religious extremism. He says when he was in the thick of it, he would have killed his own parents had they come between him and his newly chosen religion. (BUT he never heard anyone advocate violence)    The same Mohammed Robert Heft, who claims that he never heard anyone advocate violence, NOW admits he was given a copy of the video that did advocate violence against Canadians. He was given this video by Fahim Ahmed, one of 17 people arrested on June 2. The video offers a chilling glimpse inside the jihadist mind and is intended as a wake-up call to Muslim youth in Canada. "Those who believe do battle for the cause of Allah," says the voice on the tape, "and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of taghout, evil." "Therefore each individual from amongst the Muslims should come forth to kill the Jews and Americans," Usama bin Laden says, "for killing them is foremost of obligations and the greatest form of worship." http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/06/20/video20062006.html   11:05:25 PM