Search: “Al Qaeda”

Terrorist groups are really good at telling a story.  This skill contributes to what we call narrative: a worldview that explains why a group does something, provides meaning and helps to draw others in.  Islamist extremists in particular have crafted what we call the “Single Narrative”, a wide historical and current canvas in which the […]

OK, I admit I am a little sensitive when it comes to the term “intelligence failure”.  You would be too if the profession you devoted three decades to was constantly criticised in the media for screwing up.  The failure to predict 9/11.  The failure to predict India’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons capacity.  The classic […]

I like Tariq Ramadan, I really do. I have had the privilege of hearing him talk several times in Ottawa and I find him to be a very well spoken and intelligent man. And I don’t buy the accusation that as the grandson of Hassan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, he is […]

Today (July 22) marks the fifth anniversary of one of the darkest days in Norway’s history.  Anders Behring Breivik set off bombs outside a government complex in Oslo, killing 8, then traveled to an island called Utoya where a young person’s political function was occurring and massacred 69 people. Today also marks the fifth anniversary […]

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 […]

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 […]

I see that one of the greatest terrorism scholars alive, Bruce Hoffman, has just published a piece in Foreign Affairs predicting an eventual alliance between Al Qaeda (AQ) and Islamic State (IS).  I see this article as Mr. Hoffman’s attempt to remind us,  as he so often has, that AQ is not dead and cannot […]

OK, OK, enough with the stories of ridiculous over-exaggeration to what kids say and draw.  We can all gasp with horror over the child who was referred to a UK counter-radicalisation programme for drawing a picture of his father slicing a cucumber but was misinterpreted to mean a “cooker bomb” and the one where a […]

I just read in the Ottawa Citizen that the brother of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Alexandre, has called on the Liberal government not to deport alleged Algerian terrorist Mohamed Harkat back to his native land. Recall that Mr. Harkat was subject to a National Security Certificate and found to be inadmissible to Canada under the […]

It is often a difficult question for governments to decide which activities to allow and which to ban. There are clear cases where certain actions should not be tolerated, like murder for instance, and we have laws to take care of those.  Some argue, however, that governments should just stay out of our lives, that […]