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Today in Terrorism: October 21, 2002 bombing of bus in Israel

How many people take the bus to work in the morning (or you can substitute commuter train if it is appropriate)? I am guessing that the answer is a lot. It is environmentally-friendly in that it removes cars from the road and thus uses less fuel. And with the push for more electric buses we […]

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Today in terrorism: October 19, 1998 arson at Colorado ski resort

How far would you go to prevent something bad from happening? Here is a small example. Let’s say you were walking downtown and came across a man and a woman arguing. As you went by you noticed things were getting more heated. Voices were raised and tempers skyrocketed. There was some physical contact (fingers pointed […]

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Today in terrorism: 14 October 2017

Of all the actions carried out by Al Shabaab , the deadliest one took place on this day two years ago.

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What role, if any, will security issues play in the 2019 election campaign?

I constantly hear the accusation that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is ‘soft on terrorism’. Where are people getting this idea? How many examples do you want?

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An all-around, all cause violent radical

If you think about it, there are a lot of things to be angry about today. Whether it is social inequality, racism, the inadequate response to global climate change, ‘collateral damage’ or just your everyday unfairness there are more than enough causes to get behind.  For those who go beyond talk, i.e. activists, most  are […]

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September 16, 1920: Wall Street bombing

On this day in 1920 a horse-drawn wagon passed by lunchtime crowds on New York’s iconic Wall Street, stopped near the JP Morgan bank headquarters and went boom.

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Once more into the breach

I remember my very first day as an ‘insider’ in the Canadian intelligence community as if it were yesterday.  It was July 13,1983.  I had moved to Ottawa from my hometown of London (Ontario) to accept a job at CSE – Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s signals intelligence agency.  I had already been accorded a top […]

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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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Has CSIS been getting counter terrorism wrong all these years? Nope.

OK, OK, I am a little sensitive when it comes to articles on CSIS. I did work there for 15 years after all and was (and still am) very proud of what I and my colleagues did to help keep Canadians safe. No, we were not perfect but I think we did our best. So […]

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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 […]