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So now judges are radicalisation experts?

A Canadian judge’s job cannot be easy. You are expected to listen to a whole bunch of information, often contradictory in nature, from diametrically opposed sides (Crown and defence), and determine which side has made the better argument, all while keeping your knowledge and understanding of Canadian law in mind. Then you have to make […]

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They made me do it: how to reconcile ‘brainwashing’ with terrorist group membership

Of all the cases of ‘foreign terrorist fighters’ that has cropped up of late, and there have been many, many such instances, the story of a British ‘schoolgirl’ is one of the most interesting. Shamima Begum left the UK in 2015 as part of the ‘Bethnal Green’ trio of females who joined Islamic State (IS). […]

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Alexandre Bissonnette, hate and terrorism in Canadian justice

This piece appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on February 14, 2019. In January 2017 Canada witnessed an event that is thankfully rare, at least in comparison with our southern neighbour. I am referring to a mass shooting, this one at a mosque in Quebec City carried out by a young man named Alexandre Bissonnette. He […]

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A good synopsis on how Canadian courts are doing in terrorism cases

I just read a really good paper on counter terrorism and the courts written by a Canadian scholar from the U of Calgary, Michael Nesbitt. This is a rare occurrence for me for several reasons. First, there are far too many offerings that are far too theoretical for me and don’t have any real data […]

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Podcast 3#: W(h)ither Islamic State?

There have been a lot of very good analytic pieces on Islamic State of late, especially in the wake of US President Trump’s Tweet “we have won against ISIS; we’ve beaten them, and we’ve beaten them badly”.  Here are links to  a few: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/01/17/its-not-just-isis-many-terrorist-groups-have-been-declared-dead-only-rise-again/?utm_term=.dab4f12cf0b8 https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/tracking-jihadist-movements-2019-islamic-state https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/islamic-state-terrorism-extremism-eyes-southeast-asia-11199586 https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1577356/pentagon-isis-syria-could-regroup-6-months https://www.thedailybeast.com/isis-smuggler-sleeper-cells-and-undead-suicide-bombers-have-infiltrated-europe?ref=home The US office of the Director of […]

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Was the Iranian revolution really the catalyst for modern religious extremism? Nope.

In case you didn’t notice – or don’t care – today marks the 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution. It was this day in 1979 that the Ayatollah Khomeini-led revolt against the Shah of Iran consolidated victory in what became known as the Dah-e-fajr (the ‘ten days of dawn’ in Farsi, the period between Khomeini’s […]

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The parallels between school shooters and terrorists

Staying with the Lewis Carroll theme for a bit, in 1876 the English writer penned the poem ‘The Hunting of the Snark’. The ‘Snark’ was described as follows: Some have feathers and bite, and some have whiskers and scratch. It also sleeps late into the day. While the snark is very ambitious, and has very […]

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Why terrorist movements seldom ever really go away

This post appeared in The Hill Times on February 4, 2019 When we think of the major terrorist threats facing us today we tend to think of phenomena like Islamist extremism (Islamic State, Al Qaeda and the like). If we want to sound more avant garde we might say far right extremism (neo-Nazis, white supremacists, […]

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An extreme way to look at extremism

In the classic Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking Glass, Alice in has an interesting exchange with Humpty Dumpty. When she expresses puzzlement over how he is using the word ‘glory’, he replies as follows: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to […]

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Yes, Jewish terrorism is a real thing

If you were to ask anyone what they thought of terrorism in the Holy Land (i.e. Israel, Palestine), I am pretty sure that the first thing that would pop into their mind would be “Palestinian perpetrator, Israeli victim”. And, to be honest, you would be justified to an extent in thinking so. After all, there […]