Search: “Syria”

Some people have unrealistic views of security intelligence services.  I cannot count how many times I have turned to my wife, while we were watching a movie featuring the NSA (the US signals intelligence agency) or the CIA, and guffawing ‘as if!’ when something truly outrageous is presented.  Like when a small team can find, […]

Following up on yesterday’s blog about a possible Canadian who knifed a police officer at Flint Airport in Michigan, we now know that yes indeed he is Canadian.  Thankfully, the wounded officer’s condition has gone from critical to stable after he underwent surgery yesterday.  The assailant, Amor Ftouhi, has been taken into custody and charged. […]

Canadian courts are showing themselves to be prudent and worthy interpreters of the law of the land when it comes to terrorism.  A number of cases have now worked their way through the system and in the majority of them the Crown has successfully made its argument that a small number of Canadians are guilty […]

We in Canada are, disturbingly to some, becoming used to this story.  A Canadian travels abroad, to a native land or elsewhere, is picked up by local authorities, placed in jail (often in appalling conditions and sometimes allegedly tortured) and eventually released when the foreign government decides there is no case against him.  He returns […]

A few months ago an Austrian town put out a ‘help wanted’ sign – for a hermit.  I am not making this up.  The town has apparently had a hermit since the 17th century and the last one ‘retired’ in the fall of 2016 (how do you retire from being a hermit?  I wonder how […]

I have come to know the journalist Michael Petrou over the past few years.  He would sometimes call me to seek my views on terrorism when he was with Macleans magazine and I relied heavily on his book ‘Renegades’ – the story of Canadians in the Spanish Civil War – for a section of my […]

Once in a while I come across (or, in this case, have someone point me in the right direction) a story related to terrorism that surprises even  me, a 30-year grizzled veteran of intelligence and counter terrorism.  I saw a lot in my time at CSIS and had the incredibly amazing opportunity to work on […]

No Canadian is unfamiliar with the name Karla Homolka.  She was the wife, and partner in crime, of Paul Bernardo, currently serving a life sentence for the brutal sex slayings of two young women in southern Ontario in the early 1990s.  Ms. Homolka only got a lesser punishment because of a controversial side deal with […]

It was the US artist Andy Warhol who once said “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”, a phrase that seems to have underscored a universal desire to get noticed.  There is no question that it is much easier in a world of 24/7 news to have one’s story told: recall the […]

Every time you attend an Ottawa Senators home game there is a moment, usually during the second period, where a member of the Canadian military is honoured in a commemoration called ‘Heroes’ Ridge’.  Fans stand and give the soldier a standing ovation – even the players on the ice tap their sticks – and I […]