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The links between genocide and terrorism

If there is one activity that humans engage in that is worse than genocide I’d like to know what it is. Genocide is the deliberate intent to wipe an entire people off the face of the earth. The UN defines it as: “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or […]

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And the terrorism merry-go-round continues…..sigh

As we still try to process the horrific attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by an Australian white supremacist we are also immersed into a debate, less fruitful than many think in my opinion, over whether far right extremism presents more of a menace than Islamist extremism. I and many others have taken […]

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A reality check on preventing terrorism

It has been two days or so since the massacre in New Zealand and I have already lost track of how many articles, op-Ed’s, tweets, FaceBook postings and other material have called for more action to prevent acts of that nature. Everyone seems to think that governments, and especially security intelligence and law enforcement agencies, […]

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Assigning responsibility for terrorism

In the wake of the horror that unfolded in two Christchurch mosques yesterday the Internet is abuzz with analysis of what happened and why. Op-ed pieces are pointing fingers in multiple directions, accusing multiple people of having had a role, however indirect, in the slaughter of 49 Muslims by an apparent white supremacist seeking to […]

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Will increasing political polarisation in Canada lead to an assassination?

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on March 4, 2019. There is a small plaque on Queen Street in Ottawa, two blocks south of Parliament Hill. It is not that prominent and easy to miss. It commemorates the assassination of Thomas D’Arcy McGee, “considered one of the eloquent of the Fathers of Confederation” (that […]

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Here’s hoping the recent decline in terrorism continues

There is a phrase I love and which I would like to share with you today as it has a lot to with the theme I want to briefly develop. It’s “past performance is no guarantee of future results”. You may have seen this before, on prospectuses for mutual funds or investments for instance. In […]

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The almost catastrophic terrorist attack no one is talking about

Remember a terrorist named Anders Breivik? He was the Norwegian self-styled Knight Templar who set off an explosion outside government buildings in Oslo in July 2011 and then proceeded to an island where the Workers’ Youth League was holding a summer camp and opened fire. 77 people in all were killed (8 in the bomb […]

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“Just watch them”. Why we need to hear from security services about repatriating terrorists

In all the years I have been writing about terrorism I have taken great care to stay in my lane (probably not always successfully but I have tried). I provide a perspective based solely on my work as a counter-terrorism intelligence analyst, not as an academic, a policy maker or any other self-styled ‘expert’. I […]

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The Foreign Terrorist Fighter Repatriation Challenge: The View from Canada

This piece appeared on ICCT International Center for Counter-Terrorism on 21 Feb 2019 Over the past few weeks, there have been multiple news items centring on the problem of what to do with terrorist fighters that have been captured by a variety of actors in Syria and Iraq in the battle to destroy Islamic State […]

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Citizenship revocation is not the answer to terrorism

In light of the announcement by the UK government that it is considering revoking the citizenship of clearly unrepentant jihadi Shamima Begum, claiming that she is “eligible for that of another country” (Bangladeshi apparently although she has never been there), I thought I would reproduce what I wrote about citizenship revocation in my second book […]