Muslim leaders reached Saturday say the brothers accused of terrorism-related offences do not belong to their congregations, but reacted in fear that young people in Ottawa have apparently fallen prey to Islamic extremists.
Ashton Carleton Larmond, 24, and twin brother Carlos Honor Larmond, 24, both of Vanier, were arrested Friday following a months-long national security investigation.
Neighbours and friends say the pair are both recent converts to Islam, but it remains unclear whether they belong to a specific mosque or attend services in Ottawa.
Representatives from five local mosques told the Citizen they’d never heard of the Larmond brothers, with a few saying they’d been called by puzzled colleagues.
“I was surprised. We strongly condemn this,” said Imtiaz Ahmed, a local Ahmadiyya imam who helped launch the anti-radicalization speaking series Stop the CrISIS. “We need to act fast and act jointly to stop so many Canadians getting radicalized.”
Abdulhakim Moalimishak, president of the Asalaam mosque on St. Laurent Boulevard, agreed radicalization is a growing problem.
“It seems that this is almost an unending crisis for us as Muslims in the western world,” he said.
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Extremists sometimes try to force themselves on mosques and prayer spaces in hopes of swaying other Muslims to “follow their warped version of that what they believe to be is Islam,” Moalimishak said.
He said his mosque doesn’t support any jihadi groups, nor the intolerant views they hold of non-Muslims, and it also does not support waging violence against the state.
“One of the misconceptions we have as a Canadian society is that somehow these guys fester inside mosques, but the reality of it is there are underground sects, just like any other religious sects. They tend to really stay out of the mainstream, they tend to segregate themselves,” Moalimishak said.
Canadian authorities must turn their focus to those who are offering young people moral and sometimes financial support, he added.
“There has to be individuals in this city, individuals in this country, who are connecting these kids,” he said. “I don’t buy it for a second that these guys are somehow just deciding on their own they want to go on a plane and kill people.”
Police haven’t disclosed whether the Larmond twins had any contact with either local groups or faraway terrorist networks.
Michelle Walrond, whose son Luqman Abdunnur remains in custody after he was arrested in October as part of a national security investigation, says moderate Muslim voices are being drowned out in Canada.
“Muslims whose Islam is based on intellect and scholarship, we have no voice; we’re not identified as Muslim,” Walrond said Saturday afternoon.
She believes Wahhabism, an ultraconservative brand of Islam, has taken over the dialogue in many mosques through extensive Saudi Arabian funding.
“That’s the only authority that exists in the Muslim world right now; even those who reject them see the Saudi, wahhabi influence as the de facto authority. Even if the majority of Muslims hate them. That’s why so many Muslims are leaving the religion.”
Walrond’s son Abdunnur almost caused fisticuffs at Moalimishak’s south Ottawa mosque days after the Oct. 22 shooting at the National War Memorial for suggesting gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was a hero for killing a soldier.
While those Muslims showed their rejection of radical Islam, Walrond says it’s not always easy for Muslims to vocally oppose radical element of Islam.
“People are being taught to disown their own grandmother because she’s not going to mosque,” Walrond said.
“That’s not the Islam I accepted 35 years ago.”
