Don’t overstate risk of terrorism among refugees, experts say

2015/09/11 Leave a comment

Good placing in context:

“When we are dealing with people that are from, in many cases, a terrorist war zone, we are going to make sure that we screen people appropriately and the security of this country is fully protected,” Harper said at a campaign stop in Welland, Ont.

“We cannot open the floodgates and airlift tens of thousands of refugees out of a terrorist war zone without proper process. That is too great a risk for Canada,” he added during a question-and-answer session.

Harper’s remarks continue a security narrative the Conservatives launched after the fatal terror attacks by ISIL sympathizers in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu almost a year ago. National security is a key plank in the party’s election platform.

But the government should not be presenting refugee resettlement here as an either/or option with anti-terrorism efforts, says Scott Watson, an associate professor of international relations at the University of Victoria.

“I think it’s possible to do a large-scale operation of assisting refugees that (also) has a thorough screening component for security reasons, if there was enough political will to do so. I think both can be done,” he said.

“The vast majority of the people have no interest in contributing to further violence. There could be a couple of people who are sympathetic to ISIL coming in, but if there’s proper security screening and proper integration once refugees are brought into the country, I don’t think it’s something we need to be concerned about.” Besides, “there’s much better ways for them (ISIL) to do what they want to do than to use refugees as the means of doing it,” said Watson.

He and Whitaker have done extensive research on the rise of national security fears that have accompanied concentrated waves of immigration to Canada. Harper’s framing of the Syrian refugee crisis in security terms is similar to concerns, ultimately unfounded, that communist infiltrators would accompany the arrival of Hungarian refugees to Canada in 1956, or with the Cambodian and Vietnamese boat people in the late 1970s.

Whitaker concludes many refugee groups now tend to be seen as importers of external political conflicts to the West.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) officers overseas are responsible for much of the security vetting of refugees and immigrants. Many refugees understandably have no official identity documents. But, “you can’t go back to the Syrians or an area that’s no longer under Iraqi government control and say, ‘by the way, is Mohammed a resident of Erbil?’” said Ray Boisvert, a former CSIS assistant director of intelligence.

“You try to do your best to interview them and get a decent sense of their background and see if you can poke any holes in it.”

Source: Don’t overstate risk of terrorism among refugees, experts say | Ottawa Citizen

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Would-be terrorist Chiheb Esseghaier is clearly insane, but should that even matter in court?

2015/08/31 Leave a comment

The small interesting fact that emerged from the ongoing trial of Chiheb Esseghaier, convicted of terrorism in the Via train plot, subject of a psychiatric assessment and awaiting sentencing:

There are also plenty of mentally ill terrorists, says Paul Gill, a senior lecturer in security and crime science at the University College London. In a recent study, he found 40 per cent of lone-actor terrorists suffered from some kind of mental illness and 40 per cent of those were diagnosed schizophrenics.

“And just because they had histories of mental illness doesn’t make them irrational, spontaneous actors,” Gill said. “Many of them, they were just as likely to engage in really rational, thought-out planning as the guys without mental health problems were.”

Source: Would-be terrorist Chiheb Esseghaier is clearly insane, but should that even matter in court?

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How families can counter the pull of violent extremism

2015/08/25 Leave a comment

Michelle Walrond, mother of suspected extremist, Luqman Abdunnur (see ‘My son has screwed up his life,’ Ottawa woman says), on indications of radicalization:

  1. If they don’t accept your family, they don’t accept you. If their new friends or teachers or clergy don’t want to know their family then they don’t want a “whole person” to join their ranks, they want a cog in the wheel of their mechanisms. When I converted to Islam, the first thing my imam-appointed guardian did was to ask to meet my parents. I barely spoke to my mother before I converted, but I was told if I wanted to be a Muslim, I had to make good relations with her. When I said I was once married but living on my own, he insisted on meeting my husband too. When my son, who was born Muslim, joined the mosque that taught him radical ideology, they told him and his classmates, “Most of your parents are not (really) Muslims.” And by a fabricated extension, he no longer had to give them their rights as family members. That lie was antithetical to Islam.
  2. If you get to meet your loved one’s new acquaintances, it shouldn’t be too much to ask that your loved one and his or her influencers provide verifiable facts about themselves. Mr. Bledsoe says: “Involve them in conversations. Get them to talk to you.… Go where they are going, even if it’s a religious institution.… We tried to go to Nashville to meet Carlos’s friends, but they would disappear.”
  3. Radical extremists prey on people with weak personalities. Unfortunately, moderate Muslim communities often encourage conformity, close-mindedness and banality. Positive influences should strengthen character, encourage creativity and innovation. In ultra-conservative Muslim communities “innovation” is a sin, but skewed interpretations of social responsibility are presented as activism. Encourage your loved one to challenge their fabrications and deceptions.

How families can counter the pull of violent extremism – The Globe and Mail.

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Can a Song Change the Meaning of ‘Jihad’? – The Daily Beast

2015/08/25 Leave a comment

Interesting approach – using a music video to influence opinion:

Spiegel tries to correct the misunderstanding of the word within the first minutes of the music video for “Jihad Love Squad” with a title card that reads: “Jihad: The spiritual struggle within oneself between good and evil.”

Now just so it’s clear, there is a jihad within Islam that means a holy war. But to most Muslims, the concept of jihad is part of the everyday struggle to the best person you can be. That is why Spiegel’s friend wore a ring bearing that word and why I know Muslims with the first name “Jihad.” (I can’t even imagine how tough that name is at the airport?!)

Spiegel, who was born in New York but is now based in Los Angeles, increasingly became concerned over how the song, and especially the video, would be received by both the Muslim community and the Muslim haters as the released date approached.

He fully gets that the anti-Muslim bigots could target him. After all in 2013 when the Council on American-Islamic Relations spearheaded a campaign to redefine the word “jihad” with a series of ads, it was met with outrage by the queen of anti-Muslim bigotry, Pam Geller.  She even spent money to put up ads to define jihad in the most negative light possible in hopes of stoking the flames of hate against Muslims.

On the flip side, Spiegel is keenly aware that some Muslims may watch the video and believe that he’s not deconstructing a negative stereotype about Muslims, but perpetuating it.  And to be honest, some will likely see it as that. I showed the video to a cross section of Muslims and some did voice concerns that the video could be misunderstood.

The music video, which Spiegel directed, was beautifully shot in India. It opens with a woman greeting customers at a restaurant. She then goes into a backroom, straps on what appears to be a suicide vest, covers herself in a full burka and heads out in to the street.  She soon walks into a schoolyard where young kids playing see her and freeze in apparent fear. As the tension builds, she presses the button to activate the vest.

But as you can imagine, there’s a twist. Instead of an explosion of material that can kill, it releases different colored powders, the type used in the Hindu festival of colors known as “Holi.” Spiegel explained that the powder represents the woman spreading love, not death.

Can a Song Change the Meaning Sam Spiegel of ‘Jihad’? – The Daily Beast.

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Calgary mom whose son died in Syria opposes Harper’s proposed travel ban

2015/08/20 Leave a comment

Good interview with Chris Boudreau who nails the problems with the Government’s approach:

Why are you opposed to Mr. Harper’s proposed law?

A few people have said it’s a great idea. But then I explain to them it’s smoke and mirrors because the politicians are not really doing anything about the problem. They’ve cut back all the programs in prisons for counselling. They’ve cut back a lot of resources for youth. That’s what they’ve done; it’s cut, cut, cut … [The politicians] are thinking, ‘We’ll give it harsh words and it will look like we’re doing something.’ The only way [the terrorists] are getting in is through other countries. So what are you going to do – stop them from going to the surrounding countries as well? It’s not well thought out. It’s just whole window dressing, smoke and mirrors. They can fool everybody because people are just not educated in this topic and that makes it easy for politicians to turn it around for an election program.

If the federal government passed a law forbidding travel to terrorist regions, would it make a difference?

A lot of the fixes and the laws and the rigidity, that’s at the back end. That’s dealing with the symptoms. The root cause of the problem is something completely different even if it’s not radicalization in this sense. And going over to join ISIS – you’re still looking at white supremacy on the rise and lots of other different cults. So there’s a root problem we really have to start looking at. We can’t just turn a blind eye and think that by throwing everybody in jail that fixes it.

Calgary mom whose son died in Syria opposes Harper’s proposed travel ban – The Globe and Mail.

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How do you spot the next terrorist? Doug Saunders

2015/08/18 Leave a comment

Doug Saunders on the changing nature of counter-terrorism work:

A couple of years ago, those analysts began asking the question: What if we have it backward? Could it be that terrorists are not people with extreme ideas trying to build up the courage to turn them into murder, but rather violence-prone people hunting for some excuse to turn their proclivities into deeds?

This was in part because the old “violent extremism” approach was failing to produce results. Studies of thousands of known terrorists and killers have identified little that will predict violent behaviour. Religious upbringing doesn’t make people more likely to commit attacks. Nor does poverty. Nor does age, neighbourhood, ethnicity, social class, marital status, education level or immigration status. Even extremism itself: People who hold fundamentalist Islamic beliefs or racist right-wing beliefs are not hugely more likely than anyone else to commit an attack.

But a new type of analysis was producing results – one that started to attract the attention of Canadians in the wake of last fall’s Parliament Hill shootings and in other countries at around the same time or earlier.

Analysts began looking at the work of Paul Gill, a criminologist at the University College of London. In a highly influential 2014 paper titled “Bombing Alone: Tracing the Motivations and Antecedent Behaviours of Lone-Actor Terrorists,” Dr. Gill and his colleagues analyzed known terrorists not by what they thought or where they came from, but by what they did.

In the weeks before an attack, terrorists tend to change address (one in five) or adopt a new religion (40 per cent of Islamic terrorists and many right-wing terrorists did so). And they start talking about violence: 82 per cent told others about their grievance; almost seven in 10 told friends or family that they “intended to hurt others.”

A huge proportion had recently become unemployed, experienced a heightened level of stress or had family breakdowns. And most had done things that looked like planning – including contacting known violent groups.

In other words: People who commit violent terror attacks, it turns out, are not identifiable by the ideas they hold, but rather by the things that they do. The violence comes first, the thinking second.

Analysts in Canada and elsewhere came to realize this, from their own analyses, before they were aware of Dr. Gill’s work – and their findings matched his very precisely.

This new approach, which has come to be widely adopted within counterterrorism circles in Western countries during the past 24 months, has changed the intelligence-gathering needs of agencies: They aren’t so interested in trying to monitor and change people’s thoughts (which involved infiltrating communities, often with disruptive results). Instead, they want to hear about people who have suddenly changed, started talking of violence or dropped out of their usual social circles. It still isn’t precise or easy, but it involves less mass intrusion into the privacy and communications of citizens.

Unfortunately, governments, including Canada’s, are behind the curve: Just as their terrorism experts and security employees have abandoned policies which resemble the policing of thoughts, they’re passing disturbing laws to make such obsolete practices easier.

How do you spot the next terrorist? – The Globe and Mail.

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Un Montréalais à la rescousse des esclaves sexuelles de l’EI

2015/08/18 Leave a comment

Good initiative:

Steve Maman, un homme d’affaires montréalais, a lancé une campagne de financement pour libérer des esclaves sexuelles des griffes du groupe armé État islamique (EI). Ce vendeur de voitures a été inspiré par Oskar Schindler, qui avait sauvé 1200 juifs pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, et dit avoir déjà réussi à libérer 128 enfants en huit mois.

C’est en cherchant à faire des affaires en Irak que le Montréalais dit avoir rencontré le révérend Canon Andrew White, qui vivait en Irak jusqu’en novembre dernier. Grâce aux contacts sur le terrain de son ami, il a eu l’idée de sauver des femmes et enfants kidnappés par l’EI. Celles-ci étaient vendues comme esclaves sexuelles.

«Nous avons commencé en janvier dernier en aidant à sortir trois familles chrétiennes d’Irak alors que Daesh [le groupe État islamique] se rapprochait dangereusement de leur village, explique M. Maman en entrevue avec La Presse. Ces familles ont été relocalisées à Ankara et nous tentons de les parrainer pour qu’ils viennent s’installer au Canada en tant que réfugiés.»

Ce Montréalais d’origine marocaine de confession juive séfarade dit avoir financé les premières opérations de sauvetage de sa poche. Les intermédiaires sur le terrain sont depuis parvenus à négocier pour libérer des enfants et des jeunes filles, principalement âgées de 17 à 22 ans, affirme M. Maman. «Selon un rapport des Nations unies, des enfants peuvent devenir esclaves sexuels dès l’âge de 8 ou 9 ans», précise-t-il avant d’ajouter qu’il en coûte entre 2000 et 3000$ pour libérer un enfant et le ramener dans sa famille.

Un Montréalais à la rescousse des esclaves sexuelles de l’EI | Annabelle Blais | Le groupe État islamique.

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Extremist travellers aren’t about to go away: Leuprecht

2015/08/13 Leave a comment

Christian Leuprecht’s contrarian view in support of  the proposed travel ban to countries where ISIS or other terror organizations are active:

Given the ease of communication and travel in the 21st century, the phenomenon of ideologically inspired travellers looking to join violent extremist causes is not about to go away. In fact, the ubiquity of social, economic and political conditions, especially throughout the Middle East, that fuel ideological extremism will likely mean extremist travellers will become even more prevalent.

Over the past decade, the United Nations Security Council has passed several resolutions, binding on all member countries – including Canada – to stem the flow of Foreign Terrorist Fighters, including Resolution 2178 in 2014. Political stripes notwithstanding, the next federal government is bound to find itself under continued pressure to innovate measures to counter and prevent terrorist-related activity. In this light, Canadians stand to benefit from a more informed debate on issues of national security. No better time, then, to raise legislative proposals than during an election campaign and afford Canadians the opportunity to cast their lot on the issue at the urn.

Extremist travellers aren’t about to go away – The Globe and Mail.

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Damian Clairmont’s mother says Harper pushing ‘quick fix’ on terrorism

2015/08/12 Leave a comment

Captures it exactly (Michael den Tandt made similar arguments in Michael Den Tandt: Harper pandering with plan to make it illegal to travel to terror-stricken zones):

An Alberta woman whose 22-year-old son was killed while fighting with Islamic extremists in Syria says Stephen Harper is looking for a “quick fix” to deal with terrorism instead of addressing the root cause of radicalized youth.

The Conservative leader promised on Sunday that, if re-elected, his government would make it a crime for Canadians to travel to countries or regions where they could fight alongside groups identified by the federal government as terrorist organizations.

He said the government would establish “declared areas” — parts of the world where terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, hold control and use their base to recruit and train followers.

“Anybody can pick up and travel and book a flight to anywhere, and if you really want to go badly enough, you can book your flight to Europe and then from there book yourself into somewhere else,” Chris Boudreau of Calgary said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“It’s window dressing. It’s not realistic.”

Damian Clairmont’s mother says Harper pushing ‘quick fix’ on terrorism – Politics – CBC News.

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The Religious Roots of Domestic Terror: Stuart Wexler

2015/08/10 Leave a comment

A reminder that violent extremism is not unique to any one religion:

From Charleston to Chattanooga to Lafayette, a series of mass murders has reignited debates over the nature of terrorism and how it is covered by the media—over whether these are terrorist acts to begin with, and—the latest wrinkle—whether or not they might be acts of religious terrorism.

In many ways the controversy has become part of a culture war. Those on the Left argue that an implicitly racist media too often dismisses mass violence by white men as the byproduct of mental derangement; Islam is seen an acceptable predicate for terrorism, but not white supremacy. Those on the Right argue that liberals, especially those in the Obama administration, are too quick to sugarcoat acts of Islamic terrorism as mere extremism devoid of religious impulse—jeopardizing security in the name of political correctness.

But if Americans want to understand and possibly even prevent domestic terrorism in the future, then they may have to abandon neat labels and presuppositions and start to deal in nuance.

The very act of defining terrorism is nuanced, something academics and national security experts have acknowledged for decades. The U.S. State Department (which once designated Nelson Mandela as a terrorist), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United Nations all offer different criteria for who or what qualifies as a terrorist.

But almost every definition of terrorism includes at least two elements:  (1) an intention to strike at civilians or noncombatants; and  (2) the hope that the violence will serve as a symbolic act and/or advance some political or ideological outcome preferred by the perpetrator. The compulsion to label any act of mass violence as terrorism is counterproductive as it may create an overreaction to what is a one-off, if shocking and tragic, event.

…A full appreciation of these recent events thus confounds the conventional understanding of terrorism, especially religious terrorism. Together, the Charleston and Chattanooga shootings show that no religion is exempt from perversion by extremists, but that such perversion is often about finding ways to not apply religious norms and standards to large swaths of humanity. There is not that much distance between Charleston and Chattanooga.

The Religious Roots of Domestic Terror – The Daily Beast.

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