Toronto 18 spook gains fame and fortune

Image: IPolitics/Michael Harris (2013) - We have a new anti-terror bill. Anyone else terrified?


Toronto 18 spook gains fame and fortune

..... Doin' the Mubin Shaikh-down

Global Research (2006): Alleged Toronto terror plot included two police agents

• In the days immediately following the arrests, the World Socialist Web Site urged that “all of the claims of the government and the police concerning the alleged terrorist conspiracy, and the further revelations and speculations given out by the media, be treated with the utmost caution and a large degree of skepticism. None of the alleged facts presented by the authorities can be accepted uncritically as true.”
• This warning was quickly vindicated when, in July, the identity of a first CSIS mole was made public. One Mubin Shaikh admitted to the media that he had been working for CSIS for two years, befriending members of the Toronto group and ultimately going on to lead the two-week “terrorist training camp.” This camp, which largely consisted of paint-ball games, was under blanket surveillance by CSIS and RCMP personnel, while a crack-Canadian Armed Forces special operations unit waited a short helicopter ride away for orders to intervene.
• The first mole claimed to have been paid $77,000 by CSIS for his services in infiltrating the Toronto “cell” and leading their terrorist training camp, and to be owed a further $300,000. These figures by themselves call into question not only the mole’s motives but also the reliability of the information he may have passed on to his paymasters. He clearly had a strong material interest in giving the security services what they wanted.

See also:
Global Research: Canada’s False Flag Terror: Fingerprints of U.S. Involvement
And:
Globe&Mail: Mole in Toronto terror trial tells court he was addicted to cocaine
And:
TheStar: Toronto 18 police agent accused of bring greedy

• ..."money and publicity has always been your primary motive informing on these accused."
• The Brampton court heard that Shaikh originally agreed to be paid $77,000, but after the arrests asked to be topped up to $300,000, which the RCMP agreed to because there were concerns he would not testify at a pre-trial proceeding.
• In 2008, Shaikh wrote a letter requesting a total payout of $2.7 million and agreed to various conditions, such as staying off drugs and testifying without any “malcontent.” He also promised not to sue the RCMP and to “aggressively defend the evidence and vocally support the role of the agencies involved.”

That bit about promising to "vocally support the role of the agencies involved" speaks volumes. Shaikh had stuff on them that they didn't want made public; therefore he could name his fee and receive it.

By 2014 he was aggressively critical of the current efforts to deal with terrorism, placing himself back into the spotlight (maybe he was running out of money?).

He is once again Mubin Shaikh, the man who "foiled" the Toronto 18 terror plot!  Fame and fortune are his once more. He even did a squeaky clean TED talk on how he originally celebrated 9/11 but now is deeply spiritual (like a Christian born-again who has seen the true light). He is now a terrorism do-gooder and expert on literally everything.

Why he's even described by the raunchy duo "Krystyna and Corinne" as "fascinating on sexuality in the Quran". How deeply spiritual is that, eh? 

Shaikh is nothing if not an inveterate attention seeker and a consummate actor. Here's a comment from below the TED Talk on YouTube from someone who apparently knew him way back when:

Donald Morgan - 4 months ago (edited)

• Mubin is a fraud anyone who knew him when he was a student at York Memorial CI can see through his garbage. After 9/11 you did not celebrate Mubin. I remember you on Yahoo chat under the screen name "Mystic Sage" just after 9/11, condemning the terrorist act not celebrating it.

• You called muslims to jihad... another lie... remember Peter and your treatment of his girlfriend Mubin?... that's what you were busy doing.  

Shaikh's veracity in court during the Toronto 18 trial was also questioned -- even by the government's own lawyers. He kept telling different stories and he's doing that still. He appears to be a walking-talking fiction whose own father has difficulty believing in him. (See scenes with his father in the TVO movie)

As The Star's Thomas Walkom wrote:

• But for the remaining 10 adults facing trial (four have had all charges dropped since the arrests two years ago, as have three youths) the credibility of informer Shaikh is equally crucial.
• Paid $300,000 by the RCMP to infiltrate the cell of alleged terrorists, Shaikh is the sole source for many of the sensational charges levelled against them – including claims that they wanted to blow up nuclear plants and storm Parliament.
• If, as the Crown now suggests, this RCMP agent can't be believed, what happens to the government's case?

Well, we know now that, after being held in jail throughout the long proceedings, several of the young men in the group ended up pleading guilty just to get it over with and be able to see their own futures.

Who is paying Shaikh for his acting skills now? For starters: He's listed as an expert associated with TSAS (Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society). It appears to be funded by SSHRC, which means Shaikh is still on the Government payroll.

Yet just four years ago, he was quoted in Macleans as saying:

• “This is what pisses me off ... I’ve been going to governments telling them we need something, on-the-ground counter-radicalization programs, something. Instead, they’re giving money for academic research on what causes radicalization. I mean, we’re eight years after the Toronto 18, 13 years after 9/11 and we’re just starting to look into what causes this? While all this other s–t is going on?”

Clearly Shaikh was looking for work at the time, and it looks as if almost anything would do. He joined the very group he complained about to Macleans. Now he appears to be consulted by literally everybody:

Page 12 PDF US Homeland Security document:

• Mr.  Shaikh  is  a  former  Muslim  extremist  and  an  expert  on  radicalization,  terrorism,  and  countering  violent  extremism.  He  has  consulted  on  the  topic  of  ISIS with  the  U.S.  State  Department,  U.S.  National  Counterterrorism Center  (NCTC),  U.S.  Special  Operations  Command  (SOCOM),  Central Command, NATO, Interpol, and other agencies.

Is he headed for Hollywood, or is there simply a nasty surprise of some sort approaching on the horizon? We haven't had the promised October surprise yet, have we?  I doubt that the dubious disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi into the Saudi mist qualifies.

Why didn't Shaikh try to diffuse the Toronto 18 instead of leading them into temptation and consequent prison sentences? Obviously, extra funds had been provided to the RCMP to prevent terrorism -- surely not to encourage it so that a show-trial could be held and Canadians would be led to believe in and fear the whole terror meme after 9/11 -- not to mention starting them on the road to anti-immigration politics. Talk about misuse of the taxpayers' dollar! 

I think I just answered my own question.

Nevertheless, Shaikh is quoted as an expert by even such revered information outlets as The Intercept, and he gives a clue as to where his politics currently reside:

• “The Trump administration has indicated that they’re going to reframe CVE [Countering Violent Extremism] purely around jihadism and in the process tear down all the relationships that the Obama administration built,” said Mubin Shaikh, a counterterrorism specialist and an academic researcher on radicalization. “But this whole notion of making CVE only about Islamic extremism when you have white supremacists shooting up mosques, Sikh temples, and churches is completely misguided.”

Interestingly enough, Canada's own Trump in the person of former PM Stephen Harper was firmly in charge at the time that the Toronto 18 group were on trial. See: The Harper Government and Canada’s ‘War-on-Terror’ Immigration Policy

Nowhere does Shaikh express concern that ISIS in Syria and Iraq has been funded by the West and that their members are being allowed to return home and be "reintegrated" into ordinary society. Ralph Goodale mum on what Ottawa will do with returning Canadian ISIS fighters

Could that be why we're hearing more and more from Shaikh? Will he receive even more tax dollars by helping to "reintegrate" ISIS members?  To what usefulness under his tutelage, I can't help wondering.

Hey, there's a Google App for that now!  So Shaikh has some big competition.

Related on YYC: Satire: Official Al Qaeda CDN Gov't Takeover Manual

Image: Mubin Shaikh. Would you trust this cagey-looking guy to counsel your teenager?