CSIS urged Britain to obscure Canadian link to ISIL smuggler: book

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OTTAWA — A brand new ebook says Canadian Safety Intelligence Service officers urged police within the U.Okay. to not reveal CSIS’s recruitment of a person who allegedly helped smuggle three British youngsters into Syria to hitch the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

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Within the ebook to be printed Thursday, “The Secret Historical past of the 5 Eyes: The untold story of the shadowy worldwide spy community, by means of its targets, traitors and spies,” creator Richard Kerbaj says that in early March 2015, two CSIS officers visited Richard Walton, then head of the counterterrorism command at London’s Metropolitan Police Service.

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Kerbaj’s ebook says the Canadian officers informed Walton that the accused smuggler, Mohammed al-Rashed, had been working as an agent for CSIS when arrested by Turkish authorities the earlier month — a case that had not but been made public.

The ebook says the Canadian intelligence officers weren’t assembly with Walton to supply an apology, however fairly within the hope that any ongoing investigation into the youngsters’ journey to Syria wouldn’t pressure CSIS to be questioned or held accountable.

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Allegations about al-Rashed’s involvement with Canadian intelligence made worldwide headlines — and surfaced within the Home of Commons — in mid-March 2015.

Requested about Kerbaj’s ebook, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated Wednesday that in a “notably harmful world,” Canada’s intelligence providers have to be artistic and versatile within the combat in opposition to terrorism, however he additionally famous they’re certain by strict protocols.

“Our intelligence providers are topic to rigorous guidelines and rules that they should abide by,” he stated.

The federal government will proceed to make sure there may be correct oversight and take “additional steps” if wanted, Trudeau added.

CSIS had no rapid response to questions in regards to the ebook.

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Throughout an interrogation by Turkish intelligence officers, al-Rashed claimed that he had met a regional chief of ISIL whereas working at a hospital in Raqqa, Syria, the ebook says.

The chief needed him to fulfill jihadists and “jihadi brides” arriving in Turkey from international locations similar to the UK and arrange their journey preparations over the border into Syria.

Nonetheless, al-Rashed was determined to start a brand new life past Syria, the place he was born, and had been attempting to hunt political asylum in Canada by submitting an software on the nation’s embassy in Jordan, the ebook says.

“There, Canadian intelligence representatives from CSIS had seen his asylum software as a gateway for his recruitment as an agent.”

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From then on, al-Rashed began documenting the main points of individuals he had smuggled for ISIL by photographing their passports on the pretext that he required proof of their identification to purchase their transport tickets for home journey, in keeping with the ebook.

“He would then add the passport photographs into his laptop computer and in the end ahead them to his CSIS handler on the embassy in Jordan.”

Following his arrest, Turkish authorities searched his laptop computer and located a video clip he had filmed of the three British schoolgirls, together with photographs of maps for ISIL camps in Syria and photos of passports for no less than 20 folks, Kerbaj writes.

“Conscious that the Turkish authorities would seemingly leak details about al-Rashed’s arrest to the media, the Canadians tried to get forward of it to keep away from any additional embarrassment across the position CSIS had performed in working him as an agent,” the ebook says.

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“And it was in that spirit of post-operational manoeuvring that the 2 CSIS officers had travelled from the Canadian Excessive Fee in London to fulfill with Walton — earlier than the arrest of their agent in Turkey had been made public.”

The Canadians couldn’t have accomplished something to cease the three youngsters from travelling into Syria, as by the point al-Rashed’s handler had discovered, the schoolgirls had already crossed the border into ISIL territory, Kerbaj writes.

The creator says he was informed by many intelligence officers that it made no operational sense for the British police to publicize Canada’s involvement within the case as a result of any verification would have bolstered ISIL’s ongoing paranoia and compromised any possibilities of infiltrating it by means of new informants.

— With a file from Marie Woolf.