Borealis Threat & Risk ConsultingImagine that you are the parent of Steven Sotloff, or Alan Henning, or Moaz al-Kasasbeh, all of whom were assassinated brutally by Islamic State. The first two were beheaded while the third, a Jordanian pilot, was burned alive. Your children were taken from you and died in some of the most horrific ways possible. Now […]
Rarely in life is there a stark choice between two polar opposites. On most occasions responses to a problem or an issue can be spread out along a range of options from soft to hard, easy to difficult, or popular to divisive. The ways in which we have elected to deal with violent radicalisation and […]
Wouldn’t it be great if the whole were always the sum of its parts? That way, if we could ensure that we have all the ingredients and understand how they go together we could reliably predict what the end state would be. If only life were like math: 2 + 3 + 4 = 9 […]
One thing that is obvious is that terrorists love social media. They are all over it and are masters at using it to their advantage. This should surprise no one. Terrorists tend to be two things: young and smart. Young smart people know how to get their message out and are adept at modifying what […]
I was saddened to hear recently that a member of one of the funniest group of comedians ever to grace the screen is suffering from dementia. Terry Jones of the irreverent and very clever Monty Python troupe announced that he has the condition and will no longer be able to give interviews. A very dark […]
In the Harry Potter novels the villain is known as Lord Voldemort. He is in many ways a terrorist. He is ideologically driven (he wants to take over the wizarding world and force everyone to conform to his way of doing things) and he uses violence to achieve his goals. He recruits followers and tortures […]
Another set of terrorist attacks in the West, another desperate search for answers or explanations or rationale. A man now in custody, Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalised US citizen of Afghan origin, is charged with planting a variety of bombs in Manhattan and New Jersey. The targets selected and venues chosen to hide the explosives […]
People react in different ways to terrorism. Some panic. Some lash out at what they think are those responsible (Muslims, people with head coverings, places of worship). Some take it all in stride – Keep calm and carry on – aware of the fact that terrorism, irrespective of what media images tell us, remains a […]
The US has suffered through two scary incidents in the past 24 hours. Fortunately, as of the time of writing, no one has died in either event. A man dressed in a security uniform knifed 8 people at a mall in central Minnesota. There are reports he talked of Allah and asked at least one […]
If there is one cardinal rule about the study of terrorism that everyone should commit to memory it is this: do not extrapolate unnecessarily and unadvisedly from one region to the other. While there are certainly some fundamental commonalities to violent extremism and to particular groups or brands of terrorism, it is usually a bad […]