Canada ISIS-Inspired Attack Exposes Terror Suspects Illegally Crossing U.S. Border

According to the media, an alien illegally crossing the U.S. border and then committing a terror attack is supposed to be an urban myth.

But after an apparent ISIS-inspired terror attack in Edmonton, Canada, last week by a Somali asylee we now have a documented case of that exact scenario happening.

Abdullahi Hasan Sharif illegally crossed the U.S. southern border in July 2011. After he was released here he fled to Canada and claimed asylum.

As I reported here at PJ Media, last Saturday in two separate incidents he ran over and stabbed an Edmonton police officer, then later ran down pedestrians in downtown Edmonton in a U-Haul truck. An ISIS flag was found in one of the vehicles he used.

The police chief described the injuries to the pedestrians struck as ranging from “broken arms to brain bleeds.”

He’s now facing five counts of attempted murder.

#BREAKING Terrorism suspected in Edmonton involving a vehicle ramming into pedestrians, an officer stabbed, and an ISIS flag found in a car. pic.twitter.com/Jfsa3oVyK6

— Natasha Fatah (@NatashaFatah) October 1, 2017

Sharif had been reported to Canadian authorities for extremism in 2015 but had been deemed “not a threat,” making this yet another case of “Known Wolf” terrorism.

RCMP, #yeg police say they investigated 30-yr-old Abdulahi Hasan Sharif in 2015 for 'espousing extremist ideology.' https://t.co/ZKFHM085Tv pic.twitter.com/5SFFOkMGKX

— CBC Edmonton (@CBCEdmonton) October 1, 2017

Suspect was known to police and had contact in 2015 when an investigation was initiated. 2/5

— RCMP (@rcmpgrcpolice) October 1, 2017

#RCMP and @edmontonpolice are confident the 2015 allegations were investigated to the fullest. 3/5

— RCMP (@rcmpgrcpolice) October 1, 2017

Macleans reports:

Two years ago, city police and RCMP had investigated Sharif after receiving a complaint about him espousing extremist ideological views—reportedly incoherent rants about genocide, and praise for Islamic State leaders. Police at least interviewed the complainant and the suspect, performing what they called this week an “exhaustive investigation” yet concluding the young resident didn’t pose a security threat and didn’t warrant charges or further investigation […]

A construction site co-worker had complained to police about Sharif, saying the suspect confided to him his hatred for Shia Muslims, and said that polytheists “needed to die,” CBC reported Monday. After he alerted city police, the co-worker was interviewed by RCMP, as part of the local branch of the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSET). That multi-agency force, formed after the 9/11 terror attacks, has had its share of successes, helping thwart the 2006 “Toronto 18” terror plot. In 2015, it arrested a group of young Montrealers hoping to fly abroad to join jihadist groups, and the same year arrested a man in Fort St. John, B.C., after he allegedly posted Islamic State propaganda advocating murder.

Speaking to reporters Monday, the head of Alberta’s INSET team would not say how many complaints it has received similar to the one that prompted its investigation of Sharif two years ago. Carvin says the number of national investigations likely numbers in the hundreds—far fewer than European countries are handling. The RCMP couldn’t legally or logistically monitor all such individuals all the time, so authorities must prioritize, she says.

Fortunately, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has ordered an investigation into the handling of Shari’s case so they can claim that they did nothing wrong.

The 2016 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada stated that authorities believe 180 people from Canada joined with the terror group in Syria and Iraq.

Four members of Edmonton’s Somali community are known to have joined the terror group.

But how did Sharif get from the U.S. southern border in July 2011 to behind the wheel of the U-Haul truck in Edmonton last week?

CBC explains:

At a busy border crossing just south of San Diego, Abdulahi Hasan Sharif walked into the United States on July 12, 2011.

He had no documents and no right to be there. Almost immediately, he was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It’s not known exactly what route the Somali refugee took to reach the U.S. border […]

What happened after Sharif was taken into U.S. custody is unclear; American officials won’t say if he actually made an asylum claim in that country. But U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has confirmed that just a few months later, on September 22, 2011, an immigration judge ordered Sharif removed to Somalia.

Sharif never appealed that decision […]

In January 2012, months after Sharif had been released from U.S. immigration custody, ICE lost track of him. There are millions of undocumented people in the United States and it appears that, for a few months at least, Sharif was among them.

Canadian officials have confirmed that Sharif arrived in this country at an official port of entry in 2012. He went through the “regular process” and was granted refugee status later that year, the government said.

At the time Sharif was ordered deported to Somali in 2011, the U.S.-recognized government in Somalia had little effective control over the country so he could not be deported. But he could not be held indefinitely, either, despite the deportation order, so he was released. That’s when he arrived in Canada and claimed asylum.

This is not the first time that a Somali refugee or asylum seeker has engaged in an act of ISIS-inspired terrorism in North America.

I reported here a few weeks ago on the one-year anniversary of the stabbing attack at a shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where Somali refugee Dahir Adan attacked shoppers while shouting “Allah Akhbar.”

Then just days after Thanksgiving last year another Somali refugee, Abdul Razak Artan, ran down and stabbed students at Ohio State University after posting on Facebook that he was “willing to kill a billion infidels.”

The attacks by Adan and Artan were claimed by the Islamic State.

Sharif has been charged with 11 criminal charges related to last Saturday’s attack in Edmonton.