The Canadian Security Intelligence Service analyzed data on all known Canadian extremists, focusing on Islamic terrorists, and found they aren’t who you think they are. The British MI5 reached a similar conclusion with their study too.
They are almost always native-born Canadians, rarely immigrants, and never refugees. They tend to have “a high level of academic achievement,” often a university degree, especially in “scientific, computer and engineering fields.”
Not only are they not immigrants, but they don’t tend to be found within “parallel society” immigrant enclaves. “None appeared to have been marginalized within Canadian society,” CSIS says, and the great majority appear “highly integrated into Canadian society.” And they aren’t radicalized by attending a mosque.
Migration experiences, religious traditions and theology almost never caused radicalism; it was a matter of local, personal influences persuading people to believe a political narrative.
Thus, they were probably recruited, slowly and patiently, quite possibly like how Marxist front groups stealthily recruit for their party, drawing them in slowly, checking potential recruits out before revealing what the party is really about. (Yes, I have up-close and personal knowledge of such tactics. Been there, done that, got purged.)
Here’s the kicker. The study says Islamic terrorists became religious after their political conversion and people who have always been religious are least likely to be terrorist.