00:01So Mubeen Shaikh grew up in what he described as a secular Muslim household in Canada.
00:07He said his parents didn't hold particularly extreme beliefs.
00:10But this all changed one weekend when his parents went away and he held a house party.
00:15Now his uncle came to visit him to check in on the house and he says caught him red-handed
00:20hosting this party.
00:22And that prompted him to then deepen his Muslim religion to try and repent himself with his family.
00:28Now he as part of deepening his religion he went on a trip a spiritual trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan
00:33with some other religious scholars.
00:35And he visited various mosques during this trip.
00:37And he stumbled across what he said was a chance encounter some Taliban fighters who were brandishing guns.
00:43Now he said he was particularly enamored by these Taliban fighters who were talking about Islam.
00:48And he said he used to be an army cadet and he was quite inspired by them.
00:53After that trip he returned to Canada where he then joined a Salafi jihadi group.
00:58And he said he found himself heading down what he described as an extremist rabbit hole.
01:02As part of this group they would discuss various geopolitical events and wars happening overseas.
01:08And discuss the possibility of going and fighting in those wars.
01:11What he described as the great jihad fight.
01:14And he said they formed a gang mentality because they knew that they were intimidating people.
01:19Now this all changed for him after the 9-11 attack.
01:21He said he couldn't reconcile seeing planes flying into buildings with Islam.
01:26And he started his own process of de-radicalisation.
01:29Now he works as a de-radicalisation expert now himself working with various young people.
01:35And he said community led groups, intervention groups have a much better chance of reaching and connecting with disengaged young
01:42people compared to government led projects.
01:47It's a gap because government agencies and employees of a government agency are unable to do certain things.
01:56Are unable to speak in certain ways.
02:00Now Mubi and Shaikh was talking about this because earlier this week we heard about a New South Wales intervention
02:06project.
02:07Which said that it doesn't seek to change an individual's ideological beliefs.
02:11Rather it focuses on changing an individual's behaviours.
02:14And that's something that Mubi and Shaikh disagrees with.
02:17He says in order to de-radicalise an individual you need to fundamentally change their beliefs.
02:22And he said this is part of the reason as to why the Bondi terror attack happened.
02:27Now tomorrow Joe we're expecting to hear from another counter-terrorism expert.
02:31We're expecting that part of tomorrow's evidence will be behind closed doors.
02:36And then on Monday we'll begin the ninth and final block of the Royal Commission focusing on social cohesion.
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