Bangladesh was born in a paroxysm of violence in 1971. A declaration of independence from Pakistan (Bangladesh used to be called ‘East Pakistan’ after the division of the former British Raj into India and Pakistan in 1947) brought a brutal response by the Pakistani army that led to anywhere between 300,000 and 3,000,000 deaths. The […]
Author: Phil Gurski
Phil Gurski is the President and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting Ltd. Phil is a 32-year veteran of CSE and CSIS and the author of six books on terrorism.
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 4, 2018 Carrying out a terrorism investigation is not easy. The stakes are high since many (erroneously) see terrorism as an existential, pervasive threat and no one is willing to accept failure as an option: dead bodies in our streets are not something anyone wants to […]
If there is one thing that frustrates me most it is the tendency of a lot of people, well-intentioned or otherwise, to make sweeping statements about terrorism – what it is, what causes it, etc.- without doing the minimum amount of real research to back up their claims. I am sure you have read much […]
Do you get emails offering you massive amounts of money in exchange for a little personal information – say your bank account number? I do, every day. My spam folder is full of messages from Nigerian princes who have chosen me to share their wealth with. I am flattered by their generosity but I politely […]
Have you ever heard of the trolley problem? It goes like this. There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a […]
The 2002 movie Minority Report, based on a short story by sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, takes place in 2054 Washington D.C. where crime has been all but eliminated. This happy result is due to the work of the ‘Pre-Crime’ unit which relies on the foreshadowing of ‘Pre-cogs’, people floating in shallow pools who see […]
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A good day for anti-extremist forces
Sometimes you just have to applaud the police. Yes, I know that they are often accused of, and even involved in, things that are not right, such as brutality or profiling or bias and these are issues that indeed must be identified and rectified. Police officers are human after all and hence fallible but as […]
A common refrain to many issues is ‘follow the money’. Whether we are talking about organised crime or campaign irregularities or other social ills it is believed that if you can establish who is paying who you can devise ways to interdict that cash flow and hamper the activities that it is supporting. If successful, […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 29, 2018 As Canadians we expect the authorities tasked with keeping us safe to do as they are mandated. We spend a lot of taxpayers’ hard-earned money on law enforcement and national security agencies and we demand an efficient use of those dollars. We want results, […]
When we turn our attention to terrorism – of the Islamist extremist variety – our focus tends to be concentrated in areas we all know to be frequently beset by attacks. These regions would include Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria for most as an initial cut. Those who watch terrorism more closely would throw in […]