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Today in terrorism: 11 October 1993

On this day in 1993, a publisher linked to “The Satanic Verses”, a novel by Salman Rushdie, was shot in Oslo, Norway.

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Today in terrorism: September 30, 2012/2017

Terrorists acts vary widely – very widely – in scope. At the one end, the end with the highest casualties, we have 9/11 of course: almost 3,000 dead, countless wounded and trillions of dollars in damages. At the other end we have no casualties (dead or wounded): this is not to say that people are […]

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If at first you don’t find a reason to hate keep looking

When you have a bee in your bonnet you tend to seek out whatever information you can muster to support your position or satisfy your need to be right. Whether we are talking about the political party you back or the sports team you cheer for you are constantly on the hunt for evidence that […]

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What if we can’t prosecute returning terrorist ‘foreign fighters?

A version of this piece appeared in the Globe and Mail online on September 25, 2019. In much of the debate over what to do with ‘Jihadi Jack’, who is now all ours thanks to the UK decision to revoke his citizenship, a lot of arguments for and against repatriation were made. One of the […]

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Why sending military forces abroad is a two-edged sword

(NB how’s that for an analogy?) When I was a kid I did not have a good impression of the military (Canadian in my case of course). My friends and I would laugh at those who joined the cadets or reserves, seeing them as ‘losers’. My childhood was first filled with images of US army […]

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September 19, 1972: Letter bomb sent to the Israeli embassy in London

If you go far enough back in recent-ish history one of the terrorist groups that used to get a fair bit of attention was an outfit named Black September. Named after the month in 1970 during which the Jordanian armed forces clashed with fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO – remember them?), which led […]

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September 15, 2017: Parsons Green train bombing

On 15 September 2017, at around 08:20 BST, an explosion occurred on a District line train at Parsons Green Underground station, in London, England.

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September 13, 2006: Gunmen hit U.S. embassy, 3 attackers die

On this day in 2006, four gunmen attacked the US Embassy in Damascus, storming the compound with grenades and automatic weapons before being repelled by Syrian security forces.

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9/11: looking back and looking forward

This piece is a bit of a cheat. Rather than an entirely new thought it is a cut and paste from the introduction to my fourth book An End to the War on Terrorism, published in 2018. Given that today marks the 18th anniversary of the single greatest terrorist attack in our planet’s history I […]

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State terrorism is making a comeback – of sorts

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on August 26, 2019. These days when we read or think about terrorism we tend to go in two directions. Either we think about terrorist groups: Al Qaeda, Islamic State, the Taliban, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, etc. Or we talk about ‘lone wolves’ even if that term is […]