Hassan Hachimi from Mississauga (Ontario) was recently appointed head of the Syrian MB Political Bureau and Osama Kadi from London (Ontario) is a member of the Syrian National Council and a former director of the London Muslim Mosque linked to the Muslim Association of Canada and the North American MB infrastructure.

A senior source at the Department of Foreign Affairs recently confirmed that the Canadian government gave $5.3 million to the Syrian opposition in 2012. According to the National Post, “the entire Canadian contribution was funnelled through the U.S. State Department.” Syrian opposition leader Hassan Hachimi told the National Post that the money was spent on communication equipment.

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood recently announced that Hassan Hachimi has been appointed head of its Political Bureau. Hachimi has been living in Canada since 1996. On August 9, 2013, the news of his appointment was covered in Arabic by the Egyptian newspaper Youm7 and on August 29, 2013, analyst Jonathan Halevi published an article about Hassan Hachimi in English based on his own translation of the Youm7 article.

Reports available on the Canada Revenue Agency website present Hassan Hachimi (in 2000), Hassau Hachini (in 2001) and Hassan al-Hashemi (in 2002) as the treasurer and a director of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), the main Muslim Brotherhood organization in Canada.

Syrian MB leader Hassan Hachimi was described as a Mississauga resident by the National Post in August 2013 and a 2000 MAC financial report sent to Revenue Canada provides a Mississauga postal code for the former MAC treasurer. In spite of the fact that both leaders lived in Mississauga and have the same name, Point de Bascule cannot confirm at this moment that the former MAC treasurer and the Syrian MB leader are the same person.

Osama Kadi is another Muslim Brotherhood leader living in Canada who plays an important role with the Syrian rebel forces. In the spring of 2013, Kadi posted an article on his own website in which he is described as the Syrian opposition “likely interim premier.” However, Kadi was not chosen and Ghassan Hitto, another Muslim Brotherhood leader based in North America, became premier of Syria’s rebel territory in March 2013. GMBDR (now GMBDW) presented a profile of Hitto after his nomination. Hitto resigned his position as premier of Syria’s rebel territory in July 2013.

In Osama Kadi’s case we can confirm with photographs that he has also been involved with the Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure in Canada before leading the Syrian rebels. Kadi is a former London Muslim Mosque director (2005 – 2006 – 2007) and was the Principal of its Weekend Islamic School (WLIS) for the 2012-2013 school year. The 2012-2013 LWIS registration form indicates that the school administration is located at the London Muslim Mosque itself and that fees for attending the Islamic school are payable to the Mosque.

Minister Baird and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood

NOVEMBER 17, 2011 – An official in Canada Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s office confirmed to the National Post that the minister met on several occasions with Syrian opposition leader Hassan Hachimi from Mississauga (Ontario). Hachimi has since been identified as the head of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood Political Bureau. In the same November 2011 report, Muslim Brotherhood leader Osama Kadi said that Minister Baird “showed a very positive attitude” toward Syrian rebels.

DECEMBER 23, 2011 – Foreign Affairs Minister Baird met with a Syrian opposition delegation including Muslim Brotherhood heavyweights Hassan Hachimi and Obeida Nahas. The Ottawa Citizen quoted Minister Baird as saying: “Assad is cut off. His disgusting brand of violence must stop and come to an end, he must go.” Minister Baird announced a freeze on Bashar al-Assad regime’s assets and denied al-Qaeda’s involvement in Syria.

The Ottawa Citizen added that “Baird’s rhetoric appeared to please members of the Syrian National Council (SNC) opposition movement who were in Ottawa on Friday to meet with the minister.”

On July 31, 2012, the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published an article based on observations made by journalist Daniel Etter during a visit to rebel-controlled towns near the city of Aleppo (Syria). Investigative Project summed it up: “There is no mere ‘presence’ of jihadists among the rebels: religiously-inspired mujahideen is what the rebels are. The real question is whether there is a presence of anything else.”

The German newspaper provided evidence that rebel authorities are subjecting civilians to arbitrary detention and torture and summarily executing captured members of the regular Syrian armed forces.

Contrary to what Minister Baird implies, the fight in Syria is not between dictatorship and democracy but between two types of dictatorship: an Islamic one and another one, rather secular, that has treated its non-Muslim minorities with considerably more respect than the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda and their allies.

APRIL 2012 – The first tranche of a $5.3 million payment by the Government of Canada is given to Syrian rebels via the U.S. State Department. This payment was only made public in August 2013 by the National Post.

AUGUST 11, 2012 – Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Minister of International Cooperation Julian Fantino issued a press release to pledge “$2 million to Canadian Relief for Syria, which will provide medical supplies for doctors and health-care providers within Syria’s borders.”

AUGUST 12, 2012 – When Minister Baird and Minister Fantino made their $2 million pledge, Canadian Relief for Syria was a new organization and could not properly handle donations since it was not a registered charity with the Canada Revenue Agency. It asked interested donors to send their donations to Human Concern International (HCI).

In the hours following the Canadian government’s announcement of a donation to Syrian rebel forces, Michael Petrou wrote an article for Maclean’s magazine and gave some background on HCI: “In 1995, Osama bin Laden told an Egyptian interviewer that Human Concern International funded an al-Qaeda charitable front called ‘Blessed Relief’ (in Pakistan).”

After being radicalized during his years of activities with the Muslim Students Association at the University of Ottawa while studying engineering, Ahmed Said Khadr (Omar’s father) became director of Human Concern International in Pakistan in the 1990s.

Jamal Badawi has been a HCI representative for many years. Badawi has leadership positions in numerous other Muslim Brotherhood organizations in North America and abroad. Already in 1991, he was identified as a North American Muslim Brotherhood leader in an internal memorandum of the network (point 20).

The goal pursued by Badawi, HCI and the Muslim Brotherhood network in North America is summarized in no uncertain terms in this memorandum:

This memorandum was seized by police and produced for evidentiary purposes in two Holy Land Foundation trials that took place in the U.S. in 2007 and 2008. These trials led to the convictions of all leaders accused of terrorism financing.

AUGUST 15, 2012 – Hours after Michael Petrou’s piece was published by Maclean’s, Ottawa backtracked on its pledge to help Syrian rebel forces.

AUGUST 16, 2012 – Point de Bascule published an article to show more light specifically on the organization Canadian Relief for Syria (Aide humanitaire canadienne pour la Syrie in French) that was supposed to get financing from Minister Baird. This organization is registered with the Quebec Registry of Entreprises (REQ 1168220813).

Its administrator Bachar Elsolh is a well-known figure in Quebec Islamist circles. He led the Muslim Canadian Forum (MCF – REQ 1140896482) from its foundation in 1993 until 2008. MCF is an umbrella organization representing numerous Muslim Brotherhood organizations, including the Muslim Association of Canada on occasions. It is mostly active in Quebec.

In 1999 and in 2007, Bashar Elsolh went to meet parliamentarians at the Quebec National Assembly and in the Canadian Senate. On both occasions, he was accompanied by Said Youssef Fawaz, an official representative of the Saudi Muslim World League (MWL) in Canada.

NOTE: For those who look at French documents linked to by this article, the Muslim World League is known in French as the Ligue islamique mondiale.

The Muslim World League was established in 1962 to spread the Saudi version of Islam throughout the world. From the beginning, Muslim Brotherhood heavyweights were involved in its offensive. Said Ramadan (Tariq’s father) and Syed Maududi (an ally from the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami) were amongst its founders.

Saudi Arabia is involved in the publishing and the disseminating of literature throughout the world that is hostile to non-Muslims. Christians are described as “swine” and Jews as “apes” in its school books, as reported by the Hudson Institute in 2011.

The Muslim World League is also involved in the financing of terrorism. In 2005, Saudi Muslim World League Koran Memorization Commission’s general secretary, Sheikh Abdallah Basfar, urged Muslims everywhere to fund armed jihad and terrorism: “The Prophet said: ‘He who equips a fighter–it is as if he himself fought.’ You lie in your bed, safe in your own home, and donate money and Allah credits you with the rewards of a fighter. What is this? A privilege” (Hansard – MEMRI).

Point de Bascule August 16, 2013): Canada gives then cancels a $2 million donation to MB-linked Canadian Relief for Syria

FALL 2012 – The second tranche of a $5.3 million payment by the Government of Canada is given to Syrian rebels via the U.S. State Department. This payment was only made public in August 2013 by the National Post.

MARCH 19, 2013 – Osama Kadi criticizes Canada for not doing enough to support the Syrian rebels: “Canada talks the talk but won’t walk the walk, and Syrians will remember who stood with them in their struggle and those who did not.”

AUGUST 23, 2013 – In a meeting with leaders of a Coptic Christian church in Ottawa, Minister Baird condemned the violence that Christians are being subjected to in Egypt. “Dozens of churches have been burned or vandalized,” decried the minister. “Even nuns (were) paraded through the streets like prisoners of war.” The Ottawa Citizen stressed that “Baird pointed to the Muslim Brotherhood” as having been responsible for this violence. “We think the interim government is dealing with some terrorist elements in the country,” the minister said. “A lot of this is being led by senior officials in the Muslim Brotherhood.”

AUGUST 31, 2013 – The National Post quotes a senior source at the Department of Foreign Affairs who confirmed that the Canadian government gave $5.3 million to the Syrian opposition in 2012. “The entire Canadian contribution was funnelled through the U.S. State Department.” Syrian opposition leader Hassan Hachimi told the National Post that the money was spent on communication equipment.

Osama Kadi and the London Muslim Mosque

Osama Kadi has been involved with the London Muslim Mosque (LMM) at least until the 2012-2013 school year. He was the Principal of its Weekend Islamic school. LMM is an important component of the Muslim Association of Canada’s infrastructure. Besides the 2004 money transfer from MAC to LMM, the presence of MAC administrator (and later president) Wael Haddara on LMM Board (2002 – 2003 – 2010 – 2011 – 2012 – 2013) attests to the LMM-MAC relationship. 

On August 19, 2013, Point de Bascule revealed that sixteen days after having resigned his position as MAC president for “personal reasons,” Wael Haddara was identified as an advisor to Muslim Brotherhood-backed Egyptian President Morsi and a member of the Egyptian delegation at the United Nations, as attested by an official UN document.

After it was revealed in April 2013 that two terrorists responsible of an attack on a gas plant in Algeria were from London (Ontario), Wael Haddara, already an advisor to President Morsi, told journalists that the young men were unknown in the London Muslim community and that people with views that “disavow the idea of loyalty to Canada” aren’t welcome. In April 2013, the Toronto Sun presented Haddara as a London Muslim Mosque Board member.

Munir el-Kassem, the imam at the Islamic Centre of Southwest Ontario (also in London), went along the same lines in his April 2, 2013 press conference. He told media (Video 11:47) that terrorism cannot be linked with religion (“Faith and terrorism is an oxymoron”).

From April 2011 to March 2012, while Wael Haddara was on the board of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) as a director and later as its president, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) revoked the charitable status of three Islamic organizations linked with MAC because they were involved in the financing of terrorism.

WAMY-Canada transferred Saudi funds to MAC in 2002-2003 and lost its status because it funded al-Qaeda in 2001. IRFAN-Canada lost its status after CRA concluded that for the 2005-2009 period alone, it transferred $14.6 million to the terrorist organization Hamas. From 2001 to 2010, MAC transferred $296,514 to IRFAN, Hamas fund collector in Canada while the London Muslim Mosque transferred $215,024 to IRFAN from 2000 to 2009.

In 2009, the Libyan World Islamic Call Society (WICS) identified Munir el-Kassem as a leader of one of its substructure. WICS was established by Muammar Gaddafi in 1972 to further the Islamization of non-Muslim countries.

WICS’ interreligious activities have often been used to cover the financing of terrorism and to bribe politicians. In 2004, US-based Muslim Brotherhood leader “Abdurahman M. Alamoudi, admitted in (a) plea agreement with a U.S. court that he was ordered by Gadhafi to help orchestrate (an) assassination and was provided by the Libyan leader with $340,000 toward that end.” Alamoudi also admitted that WICS’ operatives were used by the Libyan government to transfer funds to Hamas. (Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad, Matthew Levitt, Dennis Ross, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2006, p. 187)

In 2011, the Canada Revenue Agency revoked WICS-Canada’s charitable status after finding out that it transferred money to a radical group involved in a coup in Trinidad and Tobago in 1990 and was also involved in a plot to bomb New York Kennedy Airport in 2007.

Former WICS leader Munir el-Kassem frequently participates in activities organized by MAC and its substructures. A video available on Youtube shows el-Kassem addressing the graduates of Osama Kadi’s Weekend London Islamic School at an unspecified date.

In spite of his leadership position in the terror-funding Libyan WICS, Munir el-Kassem was appointed chaplain of the London Police Service in 2011.

Point de Bascule (April 19, 2013): Imam Munir el-Kassem: Leader of a terror-funding organization and Chaplain of the London Ontario Police Service

 Point de Bascule (April 5, 2013): Algeria terrorist attack – Three Islamic organizations linked with London mosques’ spokespersons Wael Haddara and Munir el-Kassem lost their charity status because of their links with terrorism

 Immigration and Refugee Board (CanLII – October 27, 2008): Shanti v. Canada / Citizenship and Immigration (Section 18 – The London Muslim Mosque delivered a letter stating that a potential immigrant to Canada was a regular attendee at the Mosque and was doing volunteer work although the candidate himself admitted not being in Canada at the time.)

 Point de Bascule: File Munir El-Kassem

Funding jihadists in Syria who will come back to haunt us

According to CBC, “(Canadian) Government estimates and others who track jihadi fighters put the figure at a range of a few dozen to as many as 100 fighting in Syria against the (Assad) government.” A filmmaker who went to the Aleppo province in Syria told CBC that he encountered 20 to 30 Canadian fighters. In recent months, CBC News has reported three Canadian deaths in Syria.

In a recent CBC report, an inconsolable mother told journalist Adrienne Arsenault that her son is now in Syria after he converted to Islam and taught himself Arabic. After he left, his mother found a box he left behind with a few cell phones, some Arabic notes and his medicines. Has anybody told this sad mother that she should not worry about her son’s cell phones because the government of Canada has contributed a substantial amount to fund the rebels’ needs in communication equipment?

In a recent report divulged by National Post’s Stewart Bell, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) specifically told the federal government that, in some cases, the radicalization of Sunni Muslim young men “appears to take place largely outside Canada.” This is clearly what is happening with this mother’s son and others. After studying Arabic and Islamist ideologues in Canada, this young Canadian convert has gone to Syria for intensive military training. 

In his last brief phone call with his mother, the son told her that “Canadians are scum”, “sinners, evil” and “don’t deserve to be on this earth.”

We can expect the worse from these young Western Muslim converts when they come back to Canada, Belgium, United States and elsewhere after their fighting in Syria is over.

Instead of warning Canadians about this phenomenon, the Canadian government is giving legitimacy to jihadists who attracted these young men in Syria by funding them for so-called humanitarian purposes.

Meanwhile, Christian churches are being attacked by anti-Assad fighters, their imams issue fatwas condoning the rape of non-Muslim women in Syria, Christians are threatened to be slaughtered after Syria will be “liberated” with Canadian money and U.S. bombs, etc.

There are other instances of financial support given by the federal government to Islamists. In Canada this time. On January 10, 2012, Point de Bascule published a list of eight organizations belonging to the Canadian Muslim Brotherhood network that received funding for “the enhancement of their security infrastructure” (to buy camera systems, build fences, etc.) BlazingCatFur recently came up with one more example of grant given to a Muslim Brotherhood outfit by Public Safety Canada (of all departments).

According to data available on the Canada Revenue Agency’s website, the first five of these organizations transferred thousands of dollars to IRFAN-Canada, Hamas’ fund collector in Canada. The London Muslim Mosque, for example, Osama Kadi and Wael Haddara’s mosque, transferred $215,024 to IRFAN from 2000 to 2009.

While the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is trying to track down charities that fund jihad abroad, other branches of the Canadian government are funding them. IRFAN-Canada continued to operate after CRA revoked its charity status. It just could not emit receipts for income tax purposes anymore. In July 2013 however, IRFAN-Canada announced that it was suspending its operations after CIBC closed its bank accounts, likely for fear of being unwillingly involved in the financing of terrorism, although the bank did not specify its reasons.

When Muslim Brotherhood organizations based in Canada transfer money to Hamas (a “wing of the Muslim Brotherhood” in Gaza), they not only fund jihad against Israel but a global program of Islamic conquest. In the last days of the Morsi regime for example, Hamas militants shot and killed Egyptians who were demonstrating in Cairo against the abuses committed by the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Egyptian government.

In recent years (2008 – 2011 – 2012), Hamas’ leaders have confirmed that they aim at imposing Islam to the whole planet. In 2011, for example, Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahhar said on TV that Western civilization “will not be able to withstand the great and glorious Islam.”

On July 16, 2013, Hamas leader Issam Adwan called for the recruitment of “manpower assistance” to eventually launch attacks in countries where Israeli embassies are located. Who could be better prepared to launch these attacks in Canada than these young Canadian Syrian war veterans when they come back home?

Hints are everywhere to remind us about the threat that we are facing. Even the names of the organizations funded by the federal government refer to jihad and Islamic conquest sometimes.

Take the name Centre islamique Badr for example. This is the name of a Montreal organization that received $29,554 for “the enhancement of (its) security infrastructure” in 2010. According to data available on the Canada Revenue Agency website, it contributed $70,300 to IRFAN-Canada, Hamas’ fund collector, from 2004 to 2010. The very name Badr refers to a battle that occurred in the first years of Islam. Non-Muslims were defeated. During his testimony in front of a Special Senate Committee on Anti-terrorism in 2012, Professor Martin Rudner mentioned the importance of this battle for the Islamists. Rudner added that we should pay attention to the Islamists’ terminology and to their references in order to understand what they stand for.

In his book Milestones, Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) gave the battle of Badr as an example of offensive jihad. Qutb brought up this example to refute those who claim that jihad is strictly defensive:

Observers can also get a good idea of the objectives pursued by Islamist leaders operating in Canada by getting acquainted with the Muslim ideologues to whom they refer in their writings and their speeches.

In 2008 for example, when Osama Kadi discussed the opportunity of launching the Al Omran Islamic monthly in North America to counter non-Muslim influences in the Muslim community, he referred to Muslim thinker Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) as a role model. Many of Ibn Khaldun’s writings have been translated in English and French and are easily accessible.

Here is how Ibn Khaldun describes the mission of Islam:

The universalism of the Muslim mission and gaining power over other nations. This is how Ibn Khaldun summarizes his doctrine. This is the program that Osama Kadi, Hassan Hachimi and their fellow Islamists are engaged in in Syria and Canada. The step at which they are in imposing their doctrine is not the same in both countries but the final goal is. There is no justification for the Canadian government to fund them, there is no justification to endorse them.

Further reading

Point de Bascule: File Hassan Hachimi
Point de Bascule: File Osama Kadi
Point de Bascule: File London Moslem Mosque
Point de Bascule: File Muslim Association of Canada