The email began: “I hope you’re doing well and I hope this email does not cause you any anxiety. I really mean that.”
The name attached to the November 8, 2023, message—Zakaria Amara—was one I had not thought about in years, but there was a time when I had spent hours studying him from afar. Amara was one of the leaders in the 2006 terrorism case where eighteen Muslim men and youth, four under the age of eighteen, were arrested for plotting to blow up downtown Toronto targets and a military base.
