Search: “Terrorists”

Media have one important job to do: report the news.  Sometimes they also bring in people to help us understand the news and speculate on what it means.  At times outside experts contribute much needed analysis and insight and at others provide little of value to the issue at hand. In reporting the news there […]

It seems that many Canadians, let alone foreigners, have forgotten about the Toronto 18 (I can attest that every time I give a talk on terrorism in Canada and make reference to the 2006 terror cell fewer and fewer people have any real knowledge of what remains the single largest counter terrorism investigation in our […]

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 friend and colleague, Dr. Amar Amarasingam, has reported some disturbing news of late.  Some of the young Canadian women who have gone to join Islamic State have given birth to babies in the self-styled “Caliphate”, in essence baby warriors (IS calls young mujahideen “lion cubs”, a reflection of its belief that jihadis are the […]

It is natural in a court case in Canada and the US for the defence to use all possible means to ensure a not guilty verdict for its client.  The arguments used do not have to be true or even plausible: they just have to introduce a level of reasonable doubt in the minds of […]

And so the outrage begins.  A Transport Canada report that states that terrorists could use legitimate, Charter-protected protest activity as a cover to carry out violence (see story here) has caused a kerfuffle.  A director with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has expressed concern that the report and its authors paints “(lawful) activism as a […]

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” When President Roosevelt uttered these words in his 1933 inaugural address, the US was in the depths of the Great Depression.  Millions […]

When our security and law enforcement agencies do their jobs when it comes to terrorism, violent extremists are detected, investigated, neutralised, arrested, tried, convicted and incarcerated.  And this marks the end of our problem, right? Unfortunately, not. Incarcerated terrorists remain a potential threat because, if given the chance, they can radicalise others in the prison […]