Paris
2015/11/14 Leave a comment
Doing Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) right: Gurski
2015/11/10 Leave a comment
Phil Gurski’s sensible advice:
Which brings me back to the new government and its CVE plans (see article here). For what it is worth, here are my suggestions, based on 32 years as an intelligence analyst and 18 months as an outreach advisor/participant”
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Keep the government role low-key. “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” does not work on this file.
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Leverage community leaders. They know their communities best
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Use Muslim youth. They have a wealth of energy and good ideas
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Make sure CVE covers the entire ideological spectrum, even if the single greatest national security threat today is from violent Islamists
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I know this one is nigh impossible but here it is anyway: do whatever you to ensure that senior public officials do not say anything really stupid (like equating wearing the hijab with terrorism – yes it was done!).
Experts say Liberal counter-radicalization office should bridge, not drive, regional efforts
2015/11/04 Leave a comment
Not sure it is an either/or choice, some mix of the two approaches may be best:
The challenges, say security and radicalization experts, will lie in defining exactly how the office would work with regional actors: namely, whether it will act as a bridge or a driver.
“Is this going to be driven top-down by government or will it be government supporting more grassroots initiatives?” asked Michael Zekulin, a terrorism researcher at the University of Calgary. “I think most people would agree that it cannot be government-driven because part of the narrative is that government is part of the problem.”
During committee hearings on C-51, the Conservatives’ controversial anti-terrorism legislation, the critique given most often by terrorism researchers was that the bill ignored the need to nip radicalization in the bud, before individuals become inspired to commit violence.
Yet nothing in the legislation provided any kind of a plan for doing that.
The RCMP also promised to launch their own $3.1.-million program — initially called the Countering Violent Extremism Program but later changed to the Terrorism Prevention Program — which then-Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney admitted had no designated timeline and relies on “leveraging existing resources the RCMP already has in place, including frontline police officers, Integrated National Security Enforcement Team members and outreach coordinators.”
At this point, there are few details available about what the Liberals would plan to do differently or how a national coordinator would work with existing programs already being implemented by regional bodies.
There are various initiatives being launched by police agencies and local governments across Canada, said Lorne Dawson, co-director of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society.
In September, the City of Montreal was the only Canadian city out of 23 from across the globe that signed on to the Strong Cities Network, a forum for leaders to share best practices and community-based approaches for tackling violent extremism, while the Edmonton and Ottawa police departments are rumoured to be planning their own counter-extremism initiatives.
The York Regional Police are also in the process of hiring a “Counter Violent Extremism Subject Matter Expert” and just two months ago the Calgary Police Service launched ReDirect, which aims to prevent youth from becoming radicalized after several high-profile instances of local youth leaving the country to join ISIS.
One of those young men was Damian Clairmont, who died in January 2014 after going to Syria to fight with ISIS.
His mother, Christianne Boudreau, became an active proponent for stronger initiatives to prevent youth from becoming radicalized and in addition to launching her own family counselling network, Hayat Canada, also helped launch the the Extreme Dialogue video campaign earlier this year.
Boudreau says it’s essential to have someone who can coordinate efforts nationally and help integrate global best practices into domestic, community-based approaches. But she cautions that any coordinator will face the added challenge of having to earn the trust of organizations who may be skeptical of working with the government.
“I think the biggest difficulty is the diversity of the various organizations and helping them connect — there’s inter-faith, there’s the authorities and everybody else involved, and right now [there’s] the trust factor with the authorities, with the government,” she said, noting that any national coordinator should also be prepared to work with international partners as well as domestic ones to learn and adapt best practices.
“It’s integral to help bring the groups together to help cross those barriers, to help foster the diversity that’s there and help everybody get along.”
Experts say Liberal counter-radicalization office should bridge, not drive, regional efforts
F.B.I. Tool to Identify Extremists Is Criticized – The New York Times
2015/11/03 Leave a comment
Although understandable that the FBI would have a targeted approach with respect to Islamic-inspired extremism, the criticism is valid given that it ignores the elephant in the room: gun violence and white extremism:
The F.B.I. is about to introduce an interactive program it developed for teachers and students, aimed at training them to prevent young people from being drawn into violent extremism. But Muslim, Arab and other religious and civil rights leaders who were invited to preview the program have raised strong objections, saying it focuses almost entirely on Islamic extremism, which they say has not been a factor in the epidemic of school shootings and attacks in the United States.
The program, according to those who saw it at F.B.I. headquarters, called “Don’t Be a Puppet,” leads the viewer through a series of games and tips intended to teach how to identify someone who may be falling prey to radical extremists. With each successful answer, scissors cut a puppet’s string, until the puppet is free.
In the campaign against terrorists such as the Islamic State, law enforcement agencies have been stepping up efforts to identify those susceptible to recruitment. The agencies have enlisted the cooperation and advice of religious and community leaders. But the controversy over the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s new online tool is one more indication that there is no consensus on who should be involved in detecting and reporting suspects, and where to draw the line between prevention and racial or religious profiling.
“The F.B.I. is developing a website designed to provide awareness about the dangers of violent extremist predators on the Internet,” a spokeswoman for the agency said late Sunday, “with input from students, educators and community leaders.”
The F.B.I. had told the community organizations that the program would be available online as soon as Monday. The organizations’ leaders spoke to a reporter only after learning that the F.B.I. was likely to proceed despite their concern that the program would stigmatize Arab and Muslim students, who are already susceptible to bullying.
“Teachers in classrooms should not become an extension of law enforcement,” said Arjun S. Sethi, an adjunct professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Sethi, who specializes in counterterrorism and law enforcement, was invited by the F.B.I. to give feedback on the program.
“The program is based on flawed theories of radicalization, namely that individuals radicalize in the exact same way and it’s entirely discernible,” he said. “But it’s not, and the F.B.I. is basically asking teachers and students to suss these things out.”
He said the F.B.I.’s program amounted to “misplaced priorities.”
“The greatest threat facing American schoolchildren today is gun violence,” he said. “It’s not Muslim extremism.”
Teachers do not always have the training or judgment to identify extremists, said several religious leaders who mentioned the Muslim student in Texas who was detained and handcuffed after taking a clock he built to school.
Source: F.B.I. Tool to Identify Extremists Is Criticized – The New York Times
Former CSIS analyst on homegrown terrorism and Islamic doctrine – The Globe and Mail
2015/10/14 Leave a comment
Good interview with Phil Gurski, former CSIS homegrown terrorism expert, regarding the messages in his new book, The Threat From Within. Last para particularly noteworthy:
You write that extremism is like the aphorism about real estate and location – but “narrative, narrative, narrative.”
What they [al-Qaeda-inspired radicals] are propagating and distributing is this conviction they are responding to our aggression as Westerners, and they are merely defending themselves. And that’s not true, but it doesn’t have to be true to be effective. The whole point of the book is there is no pattern to this. We have to accept that terrorists come from us. They come from Canadian society. They are not off-the-boat immigrants.
You point out, though, the narrative is partly rooted in religious doctrine, or at least concepts like jihad, hijra …
Here’s the dilemma that mainstream Muslims face: The people who commit these acts of terrorism see themselves as actually representative Muslims. In fact, they see themselves as the only true Muslims and start criticizing everyone else as being non-Muslims. So it comes from within Islam, but it is not Islam. How do we accept they have taken pieces of 1,400 years of Islamic history, and use it to their advantage?
You write that fundamentalist imams in Canada should be challenged.
Even if we’re not talking about terrorism, if we’re talking about small pockets of society that will basically advocate intolerance and rejection of other parts of society, do we want a country like that? What the [fundamentalist preachers] do is they are very intolerant and rejectionist of other Muslims, let alone non-Muslims. I think we have an obligation to challenge this, to argue against this.
But our political leaders don’t know the difference between Islamic doctrines.
Politicians are going to do what politicians are going to do. That’s fine. Everyone recognizes if we’re going to talk about this issue, to do something about it at an early level, we need early intervention, before it becomes a security-intelligence issue. The government’s role is to foster and encourage the grassroots that are starting in this country. The government role has to be very much a background role.
But if the problem is narrative, and the narrative has had 1,400 years, how does someone in Ottawa come up with a program to counter it?
The line I like to use – and it really shocks some audiences – is that right now the only solution we have is to start with the four-year-olds. If we can get all the four-year-olds to understand what this narrative is saying and reject it, we’ll be fine.
Like in junior-high assemblies where the police used to say, “Don’t do drugs?”
No, it’s more than that. We as a society have to understand the child you’re raising has to be raised in an environment of tolerance and acceptance. So if you can get that right across the board – not just Muslim communities, not just immigrant communities, but in Wonder Bread white communities – we’re going to be in good shape.
Source: Former CSIS analyst on homegrown terrorism and Islamic doctrine – The Globe and Mail
Investigation shows cracks in Canada’s plan to stop homegrown terrorism
2015/10/01 Leave a comment
More indications of the gap in the Government’s anti-radicalization strategy:
Federal authorities argue they are tackling the problem in a number of ways, by enhancing enforcement powers, toughening laws and developing strategies to counter terrorist propaganda.
But with gaps in programs to prevent radicalization, grassroots communities across Canada have stepped up, using their own time and money to stop young people from reaching the battlefields of Syria and Iraq.
“We Canadians have been scared into believing that there are locust-like masses” of terrorists, says Hussein Hamdani, who’s helped with 10 intervention cases of young would-be terrorists, and sat on the government’s terrorism advisory panel for a decade.
“All this rhetoric, and there seems to be no corresponding investment in prevention.”
Instead of being given counselling or mentorship, he argues Canadian youth at risk of radicalization are largely ignored, left to watch videos glorifying their compatriots abroad.
… Security experts such as Phil Gurski say Canada is at risk of losing the battle for the hearts and minds of at-risk youth, without improved efforts to combat the underlying message of violent extremists.
“The Islamic State has a lot going for it. It’s got territory, it’s got quasi-religious authority,” says Gurski, who spent 12 years as a Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent and has specialized in al-Qaida-inspired radicalization for three decades.
Others like Blaney argue Canada has a solid record of deterring attacks and thwarting terrorist travel, but it’s hard to deny ISIL’s momentum.
…“There’s a sense of purpose, there’s a sense of addressing historical grievances,” Gurski explains. “That’s why people are flocking to it — that’s why it’s got 20,000 foreign fighters.”
… But how big is the threat?
By last October, the RCMP flagged 80 Canadians as having returned after supporting groups like ISIL abroad.
Source: Investigation shows cracks in Canada’s plan to stop homegrown terrorism | Calgary Herald
Australia Could Make Everyone a Terrorist
2015/09/29 Leave a comment
Appears an initiative aimed at providing teachers with tools to identify potential radicalization went a bit too far with too broad a reach:
Last week the Australian government sparked public furor over a campaign to help teachers identify signs of the radicalization process in the classroom with a prepared pamphlet.
The 32-page document, known as the “radicalization awareness information kit,” provides warning signs to indicate whether a young person is on a path to violent extremism. The pamphlet paints outlandish examples of radicalized youth who range in character, including a student named Karen who was “involved in the alternative music scene, student politics and left-wing activism.” Local media lambasted the government for conflating activism with violent extremism, blurring the line between national security threats and political expression.
While the illustrations were exceptionally misguided, the greater concern lies with creating a simplified checklist to identify young people as potential terrorists. As the Guardian rightly pointed out, doling out a canned guideline of behaviors to identify extremism not only engenders intolerance, it creates a culture of profiling—akin to the one that led to the arrest in Texas of a 14-year-old Muslim student who wanted to impress his teachers with a homemade clock that was mistaken for a bomb. A similar program in the U.K. led to an at-risk radicalization list to include a three-year-old as a potential future extremist.
…Gary Bouma, a professor involved with the initiative, reportedly distanced himself from the report upon learning it was distributed to teachers. Bouma tells the Daily Beast he did not “distance himself” from the research, but was merely concerned that teachers would not be provided with training to complement the booklet. Bouma says he’s been assured that teachers will receive the proper training to use the manuals, but what type of training would that entail?
“There’s a difference between people who get involved in what you would call incidental violence as a result of a political protest,” Victoria University professor Michele Grossman told the Guardian, referring to the case study linking a student’s penchant for left-wing activism to extremism. “To me, that’s not what we mean when we talk about facing and tackling the very serious issues around violent extremism.”
Source: Australia Could Make Everyone a Terrorist – The Daily Beast
Kent Roach & Craig Forcese: Press the reset button on security
2015/09/19 2 Comments
Always worth reading, and likely one of the first in a series of ‘transition advice’ should there be a change of government:
The problem is, however, that our anti-terrorism dilemmas are more acute than “C-51 good; C-51 bad.” To be sure, we believe strongly that it is bad. It infringes the Charter rights of Canadians without appreciable security gains.
That said, Canadians are right to be concerned about terrorism. A close examination of the data suggests it is not an existential threat, but it is a real one. Terrorist attacks are overt acts of political violence, the scope and lethality of which are limited only by the capacity and imagination of their perpetrators. They are unpredictable and designed to make us do things, or at the very least fear things. Terrorism is a conscious assault on freedom, in a way that is dramatically different from the accidental perils of living. Such conduct demands a response from the state.
But Canadians are also right to be concerned about the freedoms sacrificed by C-51. They should be even more alarmed that those rights are sacrificed unnecessarily, for no appreciable security gain. And they should be especially concerned that no party has so far shown itself prepared to grapple with the real problems that ail anti-terrorism efforts in Canada.
In our new book, False Security: The Radicalization of Canadian Anti-terrorism, we urge that C-51’s misguided “quick fixes” are no substitute for efficient terrorism investigations and prosecutions leading to convictions and meaningful prison terms for terrorism offences. They are also no substitute at the front end for multi-disciplinary and community-based programs attempting to curb radicalization to violent extremism, including in prison.
Bill C-51, read in association with the earlier Bill C-44, runs the serious risk of undermining anti-terrorism efforts, while at the same time sacrificing elemental constitutional rights. But even if C-51 were swept from the earth, we would still have a woefully deficient anti-terrorism strategy. There are many reasons for this, but two stand out.
First, as compared to other democracies, Canadian terrorism prosecutions are unnecessarily unwieldy, complex and remarkably infrequent. The inquiry into the Air India bombings pointed urgently to the need to resolve this issue in its 2010 report, and also underscored long-standing (and still persisting) difficulties in the process by which CSIS intelligence can be used as evidence in criminal trials.
The government ignored the Air India report even in the face of decisions, like one from the famous Toronto 18 case, where a trial judge reported that, “CSIS was aware of the location of the terrorist training camp.… This information was not provided to the RCMP, who had to uncover that information by their own means.”
Any suggestion that C-51 fixes the structural reasons for this dangerous conduct is nonsense. It allows information to be shared about just about everything, but does not compel CSIS to share information about terrorism.
Second, Canada lags behind other democracies in developing multidisciplinary programs to counter violent extremism. Counter violence extremism initiatives require close attention, and then careful consideration of empirical evidence on how best to dissuade persons from moving toward political violence (or for those at risk of further radicalization in prison, disengage from it).
Bill C-51’s new speech crime, the government’s political messaging and its near exclusive focus on hard-nosed tactics without a meaningful overall anti-terrorism strategy are serious barriers to success.
Exactly what the parties would do in these and related areas if elected is unclear. Certainly, we welcome proposals for enhanced accountability review of the security services — long overdue and identified in detail by the Arar inquiry almost a decade ago. We support the idea of a more informed parliamentary process, including parliamentarians competent to review secret information. Our book outlines suggestions in both these areas.
But accountability reform alone is insufficient.
After Oct. 19, a government of some sort will take office. Canadians deserve a government willing to embrace complexity, and the maturity to step back from anti-terrorism as a subset of gotcha politics. There are members in each political party who share this ambition — we have spoken to them. We hope those voices are raised in the weeks to come.
Source: Kent Roach & Craig Forcese: Press the reset button on security
ICYMI: Stephen Harper pledges $10M to research terrorism, radicalization
2015/09/16 Leave a comment
Good investment and one that any government should maintain and possibly strengthen:
On the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is committing new money to research terrorism and radicalization.
Harper said Friday that a Tory government would provide $10 million over five years to the Kanishka Project, an initiative — established in 2011 and named in recognition of the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 331 people — to better understand radicalization and effective ways to prevent attacks.
The Kanishka Project is administered through Public Safety Canada and has funded research by academics both in Canada and abroad. For example, in October 2014 the government put out a call soliciting research on how jihadists use the internet, while in July it was announced that the project would provide $170,000 over two years to an Australian sociologist studying why some Canadians convert to Islam.
Source: Stephen Harper pledges $10M to research terrorism, radicalization – Politics – CBC News
Asking why people become terrorists is natural, but it’s better to recognize the signs and act, new book says
2015/09/15 Leave a comment
Interview with Phil Gurski, author of The Threat From Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-Inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West:
During the last two years of Gurski’s career, he spoke to many community groups.
“In most cases what really impressed me was how engaged people were,” he said. “They know it’s happening in their midst, they’re a little bit confused about it.”
He said while people generally want to help, they’re not always sure what to do and may have misconceptions about extremism. The “solutions” they propose often include jobs, education, integration, mental health funding, addressing underlying grievances and developing “a true understanding of Islam.”
But he calls those unhelpful against radicalization.Employment, education and integration “do not correlate with lower levels of radicalization,” he writes. Meanwhile, trying to resolve grievances only creates more grievances and the “oft-pronounced view that extremists have a poor grasp of Islam and only need to be nudged (or coerced) back to the true path is overly optimistic.
”Extremists believe they have found the true essence of faith, he writes, adding, “what is ‘true’ religion, anyway? Does any one person or body have a monopoly on religious interpretation?”
He supports early intervention programs run by people with the proper training. But he cautions there are times police will have to investigate and make arrests. He also wants Canadians to know that those threatening to attack Canada in ISIL videos are not necessarily the monsters we make them out to be.
In fact, they tend to be fairly ordinary.“They are us,” he writes.
Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote
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Multicultural Meanderings 