Juno News - September 16, 2026


WATCH： ISIS terror controversy casts shadow over Milton school board race

The Country You Grew Up In No Longer Exists

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

160.79

Word count

1,632

Sentence count

81

People

Also mentioned:
Amy Collard Milton Abul Rahman L. Banasawi Khadiga Mitwali Mitt Wally Metwally Metwali McNwali Abdulrahman Banasawi Khadija Armitwali Andrew Tate Wait Al Banasawi

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I'm Melanie Bennett. I'm here in Milton reporting for Juno News.
00:00:04.180 The mother of a convicted ISIS terrorist is running for school board trustee right here in Ontario.
00:00:09.580 Dr. Khadija Armitwali is seeking to represent wards 1 and 2 of the Halton District School Board.
00:00:15.020 Her son, Abul Rahman L. Banasawi, is currently serving a 40-year sentence in the United States
00:00:20.420 for plotting a mass-casualty terrorist attack in New York City in the name of ISIS.
00:00:24.620 In his own words, Abul Rahman was quoted saying he wants to create the next 9-11.
00:00:30.660 An undercover FBI agent infiltrated the plot and he was arrested after traveling from Canada to the New York area in May 2016.
00:00:38.480 He pleaded guilty to seven terrorism offenses and was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2018.
00:00:44.000 Now his mom, Dr. Metwali, has spent years arguing that her son was mentally ill and manipulated and entrapped by the FBI with help from the RCMP.
00:00:53.480 And while the allegations were investigated and cleared through a national security review,
00:00:57.580 the family continues to dispute the findings.
00:00:59.780 Dr. McNwali is now asking Milton families to elect her to serve as a public school trustee.
00:01:05.340 So we came to Milton to find Dr. McNwali and ask her directly about her candidacy and advocacy
00:01:10.180 and just generally to find out more.
00:01:12.740 So today is the anniversary, 25th anniversary of 9-11.
00:01:16.300 And in the media, we're talking a little bit about whether or not Islamophobia is better or worse
00:01:20.880 today than it was 25 years ago. 1.00
00:01:23.220 That's a really great question.
00:01:25.440 I feel like it's worse.
00:01:27.120 I feel like 9-11 had a really big impact on how people viewed people of that, like, Islam and Muslim religion
00:01:33.880 and, like, all of the religious, like, I don't know the word for it, but, like, you know.
00:01:39.980 Like hijabs? Bukkas? 0.99
00:01:41.180 Yeah, but, like, the religious wear that you have. 0.99
00:01:43.900 Bayas?
00:01:44.620 Yeah.
00:01:45.880 I feel like people very much stereotype nowadays more so than they ever did before.
00:01:50.460 For me, I don't find any difference.
00:01:53.280 I don't know. Do you?
00:01:55.800 I remember where I was, that's for sure, like the second where I was.
00:02:01.440 I think people are more aware of colour and stuff, 0.87
00:02:06.680 and there's a little bit of fear involved, which is so silly.
00:02:10.840 You can't do that living in Milton.
00:02:14.400 We're all together.
00:02:16.040 So I just have one follow-up question.
00:02:17.540 It's a hypothetical question.
00:02:18.780 given the context of that would you vote for a school board trustee if you knew that she was
00:02:25.440 a mother of a convicted ISIS terrorist I actually have no no idea I have absolutely no idea I think
00:02:35.880 I'd also have to look at what their values and what they are promoting for trustee I always look
00:02:43.700 at like sometimes where their other connections are because there's a lot of people who go into
00:02:47.580 school trustee as a movement to the next level of government or to promote their own agenda not
00:02:55.020 necessarily the school board agenda so I'm not sure that that would necessarily affect my opinion as
00:02:59.700 much as like maybe why they're getting into the position in the first place. It would make me
00:03:04.020 think twice although it's not them it's their son but it's that association that where did he get
00:03:10.700 the ideas from and everything I would have to really look at the person. Yeah I would have to
00:03:16.400 look at the person too but a lot of times these kids can be sucked into something and you wonder
00:03:21.660 they've got great parents but I don't I'd be thinking twice. We sat down with Andrew Wood
00:03:30.180 met Wally's opponent in Milton's Ward 1 and 2 trustee race. I'm running for school board trustee
00:03:36.920 because my kids are in the schools here, the public schools in Ward 1,
00:03:45.020 and I have two who are going to be in the schools,
00:03:48.420 and how the schools run and function matters to me as a parent.
00:03:53.980 The end result of my kids' education is a priority for me.
00:03:57.860 I chose to put my name in the hat
00:04:01.600 because I didn't feel there was appropriate representation of my family or this community
00:04:09.940 running. And I did that like a week before the nomination filing date closed. Wood acknowledged
00:04:17.580 that he's still learning about the board's specific challenges because he's never held
00:04:21.380 a trustee seat. I sit on two boards currently. I understand governance and I understand the
00:04:27.980 appropriate role of governance. And so what I would know I can bring is, uh, is a focus on
00:04:35.520 appropriate governance. Uh, and, uh, I hope that our school board can be less bogged down by
00:04:45.800 distractions and more focused on the primary mandate of education. He said learning about
00:04:54.580 Khadiga Mitwali did influence his decision before deciding to run.
00:04:59.080 He saw that only a single candidate was running and wanted to get to know her.
00:05:03.320 Khadiga Mitwali's campaign promos included an endorsement by sitting chair
00:05:08.860 of the Halton District School Board, Amy Collard.
00:05:12.200 It said Mitwali could, quote, bring a fresh perspective to the board,
00:05:16.460 given her education and that her children attended local schools.
00:05:20.580 Her campaign page says she's a PhD, a certified human development instructor, a university department chair, and a director of a company called the Canadian Centre for Training and Consultation.
00:05:31.800 We tried to find Met Wally's doctorate subject and which university she attended, but we couldn't find it with a regular Google search.
00:05:39.000 So a source indicated to me that she attended the Islamic institution known as the American Open University in the United States.
00:05:46.800 So we called the American Open University to confirm whether or not she was enrolled.
00:05:50.900 A man driving a car told me to write to them, to write an email to them, but they didn't respond.
00:05:57.420 We put these allegations to Dr. Metwali to give her an opportunity to correct any false or misleading information and clear the record for voters.
00:06:05.600 She declined by saying, quote, I am firm in my decision not to participate in any interview and wish the public to know that, quote, I do not have sufficient trust in your publication's approach to this matter.
00:06:15.980 Chair of the board, Amy Collard, has endorsed Dr. Metwally, although this has since been removed from Metwally's website.
00:06:22.340 Curiously, Amy Collard has a video with the trans flag pinged to the front page of her Instagram.
00:06:27.720 Now, that video calls the One Million March for Children protesters, quote, far right and fringe.
00:06:34.380 But our investigation found a photo of her holding a sign saying that sex education brainwashes the minds of children and insults their dignity.
00:06:41.220 We made several attempts to contact Collard to ask about the endorsements
00:06:45.380 and if she was aware that Mitt Wally held vastly different views
00:06:48.600 about LGBT issues and allyship than her own.
00:06:51.920 Collard appears to have since deleted her Instagram account.
00:06:55.060 Collard did address the endorsement at the September 9th school board meeting.
00:06:59.020 The board of trustees operates strictly as a governance body
00:07:02.740 as per its legislative mandate,
00:07:05.840 which makes the individual actions and campaigns of political candidates
00:07:10.040 entirely out of scope of business that we conduct here board meetings should not be used to discuss
00:07:16.920 any candidate campaigns for public office and i will add to that that i do not use my hdsb email
00:07:27.000 address when i am talking with candidates i use my personal email address that would be a one way
00:07:36.120 that i ensure that i am not conflating the role of the chair with my own personal email i do also
00:07:46.440 the human side of me and and the christian side of me actually feels quite sad for the way that
00:07:50.520 she's been treated that goes beyond just people informing the public about the truth so i've
00:07:58.120 mixed feelings about it uh i think as many people do she hasn't stated that that she
00:08:03.960 She supports what happened.
00:08:07.140 She states the opposite.
00:08:08.100 She states that she's heartbroken and sad and she condemns the choices that her son made.
00:08:16.400 But she sincerely believes that he was manipulated into making those decisions and that he was susceptible to that because of his mental health challenges, which are also true things.
00:08:30.760 Wood said voters must decide if those circumstances matter come election day.
00:08:35.560 For him, he said that running as a trustee candidate was more constructive than posting comments online.
00:08:41.000 Abdulrahman Banasawi's violence didn't stop after his arrest.
00:08:45.080 In 2020, while serving his sentence, Al Banasawi attacked two correctional officers with a weapon made from a steel desk.
00:08:53.380 He stabbed one officer in the head and face, causing the officer to lose an eye and stabbed a second officer in the hand.
00:08:59.500 Following the attack, he was transferred from a medium security facility to federal supermax in 2021, which houses inmates that America considered its most serious security threats.
00:09:11.360 This is not something I've thought about for a long time wanting to do.
00:09:15.660 It really was about giving our community a choice and there wasn't going to be one.
00:09:22.140 I'm thankful I did I feel like God led me to and called me to especially now seeing how everything
00:09:30.500 has blown up I think that the HDSB board would be very distracted for a long time
00:09:38.220 because of the publicity around this and I hope I hope my candidacy can bring some order to that
00:09:47.480 While the residents of the Milton area seem to have some reservations about the idea of a mother of a convicted ISIS terrorist being elected to school board trustee,
00:09:58.020 they do seem to agree that these things can be a little bit more complicated than they seem on the surface.
00:10:03.240 This school board trustee race will definitely be one to follow.
00:10:07.320 For Juneau News, I'm Melanie Bennett.