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special to the tribune
White Muslim converts turn to violence
Shyam Bhatia in London

This week’s shooting in and around the Canadian Parliament building in Ottawa has highlighted the concerning trend of white Muslim converts embracing violence in the name of Islam.

A makeshift memorial in front of the National War Memorial in Ottawa. Reuters

Some have deeply unhappy personal histories, including drug addiction, while others respond to the call for arms from militants of Islamic State (IS) operating in Syria and Iraq.

The killer of Canadian Corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was shot outside Ottawa’s war memorial, was born in Quebec as Michael Joseph Hall. His mother Susan is a white Canadian divorced from Michael’s Libyan businessman father Bulgasem Zehaf.

A petty criminal with a history of drug and robbery arrests, he changed his name to Michael Zehaf Bibeau shortly before his recent conversion to Islam and declared his ambition of travelling to the Middle East. He was shot dead after running into the Canadian Parliament building following the killing of Corporal Cirillo.

He has been described as the second radicalised Canadian Muslim convert to have been killed in recent days. Martin Couture-Rouleau (25) was shot dead in the city of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, close to Montreal, soon after trying to run down two soldiers in his car. Before he was killed, he had boasted of attacking in the name of Allah and published images glorifying armed jihadi extremists.

In Australia, a 17-year-old white Sydney-born Muslim convert, who calls himself Abu Khaled from Australia, has appeared in an IS video where he says he will not rest until the IS black flag flies over Buckingham Palace and the White House. Relatives who describe him as a ‘stupid idiot’ say he has been brainwashed.

In his 1.43 minute long video, he says: “I say this about your coalition: you threaten us with your countries, bring every nation that you wish to us, bring every nation that you want to come and fight us. Whether it’s 50 nations or 50 thousand nations it means nothing to us. Bring your planes bring everything you want to use because it will not harm us because we have Allah which is something you do not have.” In Britain, the country’s security services are trying to locate the whereabouts of a London-born white woman fanatic who has vowed to be the first female to behead a Westerner.

Believed to be a former rock star, the woman who has renamed herself Umm Hussain Al –Britani (mother of Hussain of Britain) has revealed a blood lust to carry out beheadings. She is one of two Londoners who feature on yet another IS propaganda video.

Terror expert Professor Anthony Glees has been quoted as saying: “This is not the first time women Islamists have taken part in terrorism. But what is worrying now is the blood-lust with which these female jihadists are pursuing their cause. If the IS leaders thought it wasn’t going to attract British women to jihad they wouldn’t be using women as recruiting sergeants.”

Meanwhile in London, the UK’s most senior police officer has revealed that an average of five British nationals are travelling every week to Syria and Iraq to join IS forces.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told the National Security Summit in London, “We know that over 500 British nationals travelled to join the conflict. Many have returned and many will wish to do so in the coming months and perhaps in future years.

“We still have an average of five people joining them a week. Five a week doesn’t sound much but when you realise there are 50 weeks in a year, 250 more would be 50% more than we think have gone already.

“Those numbers are a minimum. Those are the ones that we believe have gone. There may be many more who set out to travel to another country and meandered over to Syria and Iraq in a way that is not always possible to spot when you have failed states and leaky borders.”

Sir Bernard added, “The drumbeat of terrorism in the UK has changed. It’s faster and it’s more intense.”