Borealis Threat & Risk ConsultingThe other week Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIS) came out with issue #14 of its premier on-line magazine Dabiq. There was the usual stir over the appearance of yet another propaganda product from the world’s most worrisome terrorist group as analysts pored over the text to do content analysis and determine whether this edition contained any […]
Now that the immediate horror of what happened to John Ridsdel has passed – not that this heinous act will ever be forgotten – many have turned their attention to what the Canadian government could or should have done to save the life of this Canadian citizen. Debates of this nature are inevitable as everyone […]
We learned today (April 25) that a Canadian citizen, John Ridsdel, was killed by a terrorist group that had been holding him and three others, including another Canadian, a Norwegian and a Filippino, hostage since last September. The extremist organisation, Abu Sayyaf, had made several demands for ransom and appears to have beheaded Mr.Ridsdel when […]
Life is all about making choices, whether this applies at the level of the individual or the state. Presumably both types of decisions are aimed at contributing to the personal or common good, and both are constrained by resources, financial or otherwise. Decisions have consequences since electing one path means rejecting another one or several […]
Ottawa has a gang problem. This should come as a surprise to no one as Ottawa is a relatively large city (more or less a million people) and most big cities are plagued with similar issues. We should note that the size of the gang issue in the nation’s capital is not nearly as serious […]
There is a lot of talk these days about what approach is best when dealing with radicalisation to violence. Some advocate harsh state-controlled measures (arrest and incarceration), or even harsher military ones (drone the bastards!) while others tout the intervention model. Still others are somewhere in between. Which leaves us with the question we began […]
The famous French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy has penned an op-ed piece in which he asks whether there is a fight within Islam for the soul of the faith. He makes the familiar argument that there are elements within the global Muslim polity that are at a minimum grossly fundamentalist and intolerant and at a maximum […]
As we strive to learn more about why people adopt violent extremist views and, more importantly in my opinion, try to determine which people pose a real threat to society, we often find ourselves in areas we would not have expected. We need to exhaust every avenue, no matter how outside the box, for two […]
The Canadian Council of Imams has announced that it intends to launch a series of deradicalisation clinics in the Greater Toronto Area this summer. Describing the move as “proactive”, Imam Hamid Slimi noted that “nobody wants to see another Brussels or Paris” in Canada. No, we don’t, whether we are Muslim or not. The CCI […]
There is an interesting debate going on with respect to the relationship between radicalisation and violent extremism. The current model, and the one I believe is accurate for the most part, is that radicalisation precedes violent extremism. In other words, an individual who engages with terrorist groups or carries out crimes that we can qualify […]