Episode 334 – Is the world stumbling into a remake of the terrorist safe haven that led to 9/11?
After the horror of 9/11 it was logical – and completely justifiable – to go after those behind the attacks. As it turned out, the group responsible – Al Qaeda (AQ) – was based in Afghanistan and was protected and enabled by the Taliban. The US and many of its allies sent military troops and intelligence operatives to that country to locate AQ leader Usama bin Laden and his minions and either bring them to justice or eliminate them. Despite huge successes (UBL was found and killed a decade later, albeit in Pakistan), the US left the country in 2021 and the Taliban regained power. Where is Afghanistan now and what level of threat does it pose regionally and internationally? I speak with a former CIA targeting officer on these issues.
About my guest
Sarah Adams is a targeting officer and global threat advisor with deep expertise in counterterrorism, threat network analysis, and intelligence operations. She served in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s Counterterrorism Center, Near East Division, and Iran Operations Division, leading complex operations against state and non-state adversaries. Her deployed field work spans Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, while her broader career focuses on identifying, assessing, and countering hostile state activity, terrorist networks, and geopolitical risks to U.S. and allied interests. Following her CIA service, Sarah served as a Senior Advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives after an executive appointment from the Agency, applying her operational expertise to national security policy and oversight. Sarah is the co-author of Benghazi: Know Thy Enemy, a cold case, open-source investigation that identified the al-Qaeda operatives responsible for the 2012 attacks on the U.S. Mission Compound and CIA Annex in Benghazi.
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Canadian Intelligence Eh
In a world of multiple voices and opinions it can be very hard to know where to turn. One choice is to look to those who actually worked in counter-terrorism and other threat areas in the national security world.
In these half-hour podcasts, 32-year Canadian intelligence veteran Phil Gurski is joined by a fascinating array of individuals with something meaningful to say about these issues as they provide insight into what they mean and what we need to do about them.
About Phil Gurski
Phil worked as a senior strategic analyst at CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) from 2001-2015, specializing in violent Islamist-inspired homegrown terrorism and radicalisation. From 1983 to 2001 he was employed as a senior multilingual analyst at Communications Security Establishment (CSE – Canada’s signals intelligence agency), specialising in the Middle East. He also served as senior special advisor in the National Security Directorate at Public Safety Canada from 2013, focusing on community outreach and training on radicalisation to violence, until his retirement from the civil service in May 2015, and as consultant for the Ontario Provincial Police’s Anti-Terrorism Section (PATS) from May to October 2015. He also ran Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting from May 2015 to May 2025.
He was the Director of Security and Intelligence at the SecDev Group from June 2018 to July 2019 and the Director of the National Security Programme at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute from 2020-2022. He has also taught on national security issues at George Brown College, the University of Ottawa and Georgian College. Mr. Gurski has presented on violent Islamist-inspired and other forms of terrorism and radicalisation across Canada and around the world and is actively sought by Canadian and international media on national security and intelligence issues. He has written hundreds of op-eds on these matters for several Canadian media since 2016
He is the author of The Threat from Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West (Rowman and Littlefield 2015) Western Foreign Fighters: The Threat to Homeland and International Security (Rowman and Littlefield 2017), The Lesser Jihads: Taking the Islamist fight to the world (Rowman and Littlefield 2017), An end to the ‘War on Terrorism (Rowman and Littlefield 2018), When Religion Kills: How Extremist Justify Violence Through Faith (Lynne Rienner 2019), The Peaceable Kingdom? A history of terrorism in Canada from Confederation to the present (self-published: 2021, republished by Double Dagger in 2022), and the forthcoming The Fenians: Brotherhood of fools or Canada’s first terrorist threat? (Double Dagger: 2025). He regularly blogs and podcasts (Canadian Intelligence Eh!), and posts on Bluesky (@borealissaves.bsky.social) on terrorism and intelligence matters.
