Eritrea raising money in Canada, financing terrorists to attack Canada

The government of Eritrea, which the United Nations accuses of supplying a long list of armed groups including the al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabab, has been raising money in Canada by taxing Eritrean-Canadians, interviews and documents show.

The 2% “diaspora tax” is collected by the Consulate General of Eritrea in Toronto and helps explain how one of the world’s least developed countries raises revenues as it trains, arms and finances rebels from Sudan to Somalia.In interviews, Eritrean-Canadians told of being pressured to give 2% of their earnings to Eritrean diplomats and agents in Canada. They showed receipts and forms that verify the tax collection scheme is taking place.

“Two per cent tax form,” reads a document on the letterhead of the downtown Toronto consulate. There are spaces on the form for reporting monthly and annual income going back to 1992, the first full year of Eritrea’s independence. 

A separate column is labeled “payment of 2% tax” and another is for “donations to national defence against Ethiopian invasion.” The form was obtained from the consulate last week, indicating the collection is still going on. 

That is extortion,” said Aaron Berhane, a journalist who fled Eritrea and now lives in Toronto. He said Eritrea gets about a third of its revenues by milking the diaspora. “They are forced to pay that tax.” 

While several countries levy fees on their nationals abroad, Eritrea is unique because it has been widely accused of distributing weapons and money to Al-Shabab — which last weekend released an audiotape by a suicide bomber that called for terrorist attacks in Canada and “anywhere you find kuffar [infidels].”   

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Somali cabdriver pleads guilty to funneling money to terrorists back home

A Somali refugee who worked as an airport taxicab driver here was secretly plotting with leaders of an insurgent group back home to fund the terrorist organization, according to documents made public during his guilty plea Thursday. 

Mohamud Abdi Yusuf, 31, acknowledged through his plea that throughout 2008 and 2009, he raised nearly $6,000 for al-Shabaab, an organization trying to topple the provisional government in war-torn Somalia.

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Hindus protest Muslim prayers at public school

Hindus from across Toronto plan to protest outside a North York middle school until a controversial Friday prayer session for 400 Muslim students is stopped.

The Canadian Hindu Advocacy is one of a number of Toronto-area groups who are opposed to the 30- to 40-minute services that occurred in the cafeteria of Valley Park Middle School on Overlea Blvd. from November to March.

An imam from a local mosque is brought to school to head the service, officials said. During the service male students are made to sit in front of the girls.

“This is alarming and unacceptable,” said Advocacy director Ron Banerjee. “We respect the separation of church and state.”

He said his group will be sending letters of protest to the Toronto District School Board in the next few days and calling for an end of the noon-time services. That will be followed by protests in November, when the services resume, if the prayers are to continue next school year.

“There’s not supposed to be any religious classes taking place in public schools,” Banerjee said. “We will be asking the board to stop the practice.”

He said school officials stopped students from reciting the Lord’s Prayers years ago and his group will picket the Muslim classes if the practice isn’t stopped.

“Our organization has received many complaints from Hindu students and parents in the Valley Park Middle School region,” Banerjee said.

He said his group would like to begin a discussion with TDSB authorities aimed at restoring secular education within the school system.

“We would also like to discuss the serving of halal meat within TDSB schools,” he said. “Our organization is determined to ensure all Hindu students are provided non-halal meat alternatives.”

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20 Canadians have joined Somali terror group

About 20 Canadians have travelled to Somalia to join Al-Shabab, a federal official said two weeks after a Toronto man was arrested as he was allegedly leaving to enlist in the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group.

As many as three of the Canadians may have been killed so far, the official added, although such deaths are hard to verify because of the armed conflict and the lack of a diplomatic corps in Somalia.

The figures suggest the scale of Canada’s problem with Al-Shabab recruitment is comparable to that experienced by the United States and Europe, which also have sizable populations of ethnic Somalis.

The Al-Shabab threat was underscored late last month when police arrested Mohamed Hersi at Toronto’s Pearson airport. The RCMP alleged he was on his way to Somalia “to join Al-Shabab and participate in their terrorist activities.”

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How Somali Al-Shabab recruits Western 'martyrs'

NATIONAL POST, Canada

In a video posted on the Internet, 10 militants-in-training jog on a sandy trail on the Somali plains. Their faces are masked but the one in the red-checkered scarf and white runners is alleged to be a young Canadian.

His name is Abdul Karim.

“We have a global mission,” one of the Al-Shabab trainees says into the camera, speaking in English and holding a worn assault rifle. “Come join us and defend the religion of Allah.”

A police investigation now underway in Ontario by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) is trying to trace how Canadian youths are ending up in Somalia at the paramilitary training camps of Al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked militant group.

A top-secret government report obtained by the National Post says Al-Shabab, which emerged from the heavily armed chaos of Somalia in 2006, is using a variety of methods to entice Canadian youths to its camps. “Islamist extremists are radicalizing and recruiting Somali-Canadian youths within Canada to travel to Somalia for jihad training,” says the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre report, titled “Al-Shabab’s Recruitment of Youths from Canada.”

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service said five Somali-Canadians who left Toronto between September and November 2009 “could receive weapons and related training” in Somalia and “potentially engage in Al-Shabab-related violent activities,” spokeswoman Isabelle Scott said.

A sixth such Somali-Canadian is presumed dead.

Police in the United States and Europe are conducting similar investigations. A Danish-Somali killed 24 people in a suicide bombing in Mogadishu last December. On June 5, two New Jersey men were arrested at JFK airport as they were allegedly on their way to Africa to join Al-Shabab.


The 40-minute Al-Shabab video mentions Ethiopia, but only once. It does, however, mention fighting the United States, exacting revenge over the Danish cartoons and speaks repeatedly of a global fight against non-Muslims. “We are coming you Christians, we are coming you Jews,” it says.

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