Search: “afghanistan”

Here we go again. After more than 1,000 blogs on terrorism it is inevitable that my readers will encounter some repetition. While I have tried to keep my writings new and fresh it is perhaps – I hope! – understandable that some topics will rise to surface more than once. After all, there are simply […]

Suicide is not funny. Suicide bombing is likewise not a funny topic. Those who engage in such activities not only kill themselves but usually others and many of those others are truly innocent people. We might want to argue over whether a suicide attack on a military convoy or an army encampment is really terrorism, […]

How dangerous do you think terrorism is? How often do you think about it? Do you worry about attacks where you live? Have you witnessed an attack or, heaven forbid, been the victim of one? The answer you provide will depend crucially on where you live. If you are a citizen of many parts of […]

When you have been at war with something for almost two decades it is important to declare ‘victory’ at some point. Those whose support you – i.e. the public/taxpayer – need and want to see some results for the actions they are backstopping. Fighting for years with no sense that you are winning is a […]

War is draining. Whether we are talking about the men and women whom we send to war on our behalf, and who to be honest are the greatest at risk and hence usually the last ones who want to go and fight, or societies in general, I think we can all agree that war should […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 17, 2019. It might strike the reader as odd that someone with so much invested in counter terrorism is here making the suggestion that we need to worry less about terrorism. After all, if we stopped spending so much time talking about it, wouldn’t that put […]

In an era, the so-called post 9-11 age, where we are obsessed with terrorism we have a very awkward question to answer, if you happen to be a Canadian (or an American I think): where are all the terrorist attacks? If terrorism is all that prevalent, as we have been led to believe, and it […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 3, 2019 Canada had nothing to do with the US decision to use the anachronistic Guantanamo Bay military camp in Cuba as a highly controversial – if not internationally illegal – detention centre for suspected terrorists. That people alleged to have been linked to terrorist groups […]

When it comes to terrorism we have this odd obsession with groups. We study them, we dissect them, we map their internal organisations, we draw up ‘top-ten’ most wanted members, and in many instances countries have created ‘terrorist entity lists’ (here is a link to Canada’s for example). It is as if groups are what […]

You gotta feel for Sri Lanka. The island nation went through a full quarter century of civil war as the government tried, and ultimately succeeded, in defeating a separatist movement led by an actual terrorist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE for short. The war ended in 2009, allowing Sri Lanka to […]