The news is full, every single day, of reports of violence from a number of actors: murders, sexual assaults, shootings, etc. Occasionally we read of a terrorist attack somewhere in the world – depending on where you live the frequency of this particular form of violence will vary. Not surprisingly, if you live in Somalia […]
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.
There is a brilliant set of podcasts on the New York Times Web site by reporter Rukmini Callimachi and her team on Islamic State (IS). If you haven’t listened to it and are interested in a first-hand account of what it was like to live in the so-called ‘Caliphate ‘ you are missing out. Yes, […]
Categories
The rise of the ‘jihadettes’
In the wake of the van attack in Toronto last week there has been a lot of ink spilled and airtime filled on the problem of what to do with young men. Regardless of motive, it seems that serious violence is carried out overwhelmingly by the male half of the human species. Many researchers and […]
Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said it best in referring to the Canadian-US relationship: “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt”. We Canadians do spend a […]
Categories
Sex, sex, sex…and terrorism
To say that we in the West live in a sex-craved society is putting things mildly. From TV shows where sexual humour is pervasive (for what it is worth, I think The Big Bang Theory would be a lot funnier without so many sex jokes and no, I am not a prude!) to advertising it […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 23, 2018 Way back when I was an analyst at CSE I recall a conversation with an workmate about who was more important to the organisation (we were both young and full of piss and vinegar). He worked on the ‘Soviet problem’: I was assigned along […]
Like most people I had a fascination with dinosaurs when I was a kid. I had plastic dinosaurs and books on these grand behemoths. I loved movies about them, even if they were really bad 1960s sci-fi ones that were as inaccurate as possible. In my 20s I began to read more recent books on […]
As a former intelligence analyst with more than three decades in national security and someone who has chosen to go public with my knowledge, perspective and experience I have attracted a lot of attention. Some of it is praiseworthy (“Thanks for your service”), some appreciative (“I like what you wrote”) and some not so good […]
We humans are a curious species (in both senses of the word ‘curious’). The foremost question on our minds is always Why? Why is the sky blue? Why do the seasons change? Why can’t a Canadian team win the Stanley Cup? Why? Why? WHY? Our insatiable need to know extends to tragic events, such as […]
It is a little past 7 PM on Monday, April 23 as I pen this op-ed in Ottawa. A little more than 5 hours ago a rented van appeared to jump a curb and run down pedestrians near the corner of Finch and Yonge streets in North Toronto. A man is in custody following an […]