Borealis Threat & Risk ConsultingThis has been a very, very disturbing day. An attack – including a decapitation – in France. Tourists slaughtered in Tunisia. Shia Muslims killed by a suicide bomber at their mosque. After prayers. This evokes the senselessness of the massacre last week in Charleston, South Carolina. I’ve always advocated keeping things in perspective and […]
Intelligence agencies can get quite creative when developing ways to collect information. But sometimes they get too creative that lead to more problems. Not to mention endangering thousands of lives – innocent lives. Take the case of Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani doctor in jail for his involvement in the terrorist group Laskhar-e-Islam. What is far […]
Watch Satyamoorthy Kabilan and Phil Gurski discuss the anniversary of the Air India bombing and lessons learned to help fight terrorism in Canada.
On one level, it amazes me how open people are with their hateful ideology. Part of me thinks that supporters or fans of extremism would be a little more careful in displaying their beliefs given society’s opprobrium and the fact that, at least in today’s Canada, their activities could cross the criminal threshold. Take the […]
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the terrorist attack against Air India flight 182 which fell into the sea off the coast of Ireland, taking with it 329 lives, the vast majority of them Canadians. Many fail to recognise that the bombing was the largest single terrorist attack prior to 9/11. So as we remember […]
Sometimes you come across a quote that really strikes you as profound. Here’s one that remains relevant after all these years. It comes from a 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs and was penned by Paris-based researcher Grenville Buford: “Wars have typically been fought against proper nouns (Germany, say) for the good reason that proper nouns […]
Further to my previous blog on when to call something terrorism, there has been an ongoing debate on what to call the Islamic State (or as it is also known, ISIL or ISIS or DAESH or…). A recent op-ed in the English edition of Asharq Alawsat (see it here) calls on us to stop calling […]
In the wake of the horrific killings at an African American church in South Carolina, the old argument was again raised: was this an act of terrorism? Many criticised the media and government for hesitating to use the term and some concluded that terrorism only seemed to apply when the perpetrators were Muslim and not white. […]
In a recent video appearance before the Canadian national security and defence committee, charged with preparing a report on threats to national security, former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali warned the Canadian government that “you should be looking out for the sprouting of mosques and Islamic centres. You should be looking out for the establishment of Islamic schools […]
Remember when we were all inspired by the grassroots efforts made across North Africa and the Middle East in the name of freedom and democracy? And how these movements were going to change the region and the world? Without wanting to denigrate the sacrifices made by millions, I think we can conclude that – for […]