Search: “Al Qaeda”

As I wrote in a blog post yesterday, today marks the 10th anniversary of the arrest of 17 men in the Greater Toronto Area in the culmination of a massive terrorism investigation by Canadian authorities.  In what came to be known as the “Toronto 18” (the last subject was arrested in August 2006) Canadians were […]

One of the most central tenets of the ideology that drives terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Boko Haram and others is the belief that Islam and the West are in a state of war.  This war, they maintain, was not instigated from within or by the Ummah, or Islamic world, but rather is […]

A lot of people and a lot of governments are getting tired of the so-called “War on Terrorism”.  More and more attacks seem to be happening all the time.  What we used to think was a problem “over there” is now “over here”: Brussels, Paris, San Bernardino, Ottawa…  We cannot seem to get away from […]

The rolling hills of West Sussex provide a beautiful backdrop for just about any activity. I have just returned from a two and a half day conference at Wiston House (Wilton Park) at which 50 people were charged with looking at the relationship between religion and radicalisation.  An emotional and difficult topic to be sure […]

The 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 […]

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 […]

I have often said that we here in Canada are living in a post-religious society.  This is not to imply that religion does not exist here or that faith is not very important to many Canadians, but rather that it does not have the profile it once did and does not appear to have a […]

I learned a long time ago not to jump to conclusions based on very little information (a cardinal sin in intelligence analysis).  Hence some of this post will be tenuous in nature.  I am writing of course on the attack at a Canadian Armed Forces recruiting centre in Toronto on March 14th in which a knife-wielding […]

In a statement of the obvious, Islamic State has taken barbarity to a new (recent) low.  There is no question that throwing homosexuals off apartment buildings, burning people alive, beheading prisoners and raping girls qualifies as reprehensible behaviour.  Not that we humans have never before engaged in these subhuman kinds of acts, but the frequency […]

Intelligence is usually a plodding business.  Not that it is not exciting – quite the contrary! – but that it takes time to gather information, process it, analyse it, figure out what gaps remain, and then go out and get more.  Rarely do you paint a complete picture, regardless of how good and diverse your […]