Half of the attacks since 2001 were committed by men born in the United States.

2015/11/26 Leave a comment

Similar pattern to other countries:

Since then [9/11], most of the attackers in the United States claiming or appearing to be motivated by extremist Islam were born in this country or were naturalized citizens. None were refugees.

The paths to violence for the United States-born attackers varied. Some were recent converts to Islam. At least three who were born in the U.S. had previous criminal histories, and onehad a history of mental illness. One seemed to have radicalized after spending time in Yemen. Another became radicalized after being convicted of lying to F.B.I. agents — denying he had made plans to travel to Somalia when in fact he had.

Security experts argue that the risks of routine travel — including the U.S. visa waiver program, which allows citizens of Britain, France, Belgium and 35 other countries to enter the United States without a visa for stays of up to 90 days — are greater than the threat of foreign terrorists coming through the refugee program.

“Further restricting the acceptance of refugees does not address the most likely vulnerability to attacks from abroad, which is the large number of people from visa-waiver countries involved in the conflict in Syria,” said David Sterman, a researcher for the International Security Program at the New America think tank who has been cataloging terrorist attacks carried out since Sept. 11.

Source: The Origins of Jihadist-Inspired Attacks in the U.S. – The New York Times

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We must not allow terrorists to turn us into beasts: Robin Sears

2015/11/18 Leave a comment

Reprinted in its entirety:

There is an easily missed photograph at Canada’s museum to our immigration history, Pier 21 in Halifax. It highlights a Polish immigrant family from the 1950s. The picture was clearly taken before they received the appalling news that they were being put on a boat back to Poland for having failed to adequately disprove “suspicions of communist sympathy.” One’s reaction is first shock and then anger at the official who summarily consigned this family, who must have escaped from Poland illegally, to a life in prison if not a more summary reception on their return.

But as you stare at this modest display in mounting anger a second thought occurs. How courageous was the curator who found this story, and probably had to fight for it to be displayed. How proud one should be of the determination of the museum’s creators to tell all sides of Canada’s decidedly mixed immigration history. They smack you in the head at the exit with Daniel Libeskind’s understated but powerful memorial sculpture marking the cowardly decision of the MacKenzie King government to turn back a boatload of desperate Jewish refugees a few years earlier.

Canada’s priceless contribution to the world’s understanding of the essential role of tolerance or mutual accommodation in every successful community is the philosopher Charles Taylor. Taylor puts his case starkly. None of us, he cautions, is capable of resisting the seduction of prejudice, exclusion, or even collective punishment if we are sufficiently terrified by propaganda about “the other.”

Equally, each of us is willing to walk the path of inclusion, tolerance and openness to religious, ethnic and racial diversity with sufficient reassurance about its wisdom and safety. He cites France’s painful passage from being one of the world’s most inclusive societies post-revolution, to its more shameful treatment of its Muslim citizens since they landed on its shores post-Algerian war.

The optimistic conclusion we should draw from the French case is two-fold, he points out. First, any society dragged to the dark side can be redeemed, even if the reverse is equally true. Second, it is all about leadership in the end. It is the inescapable task of genuine democratic leaders to build confidence in openness and tolerance. Leaders who breed fear and division for partisan gain shame themselves irredeemably, and doom their citizens to societies of paranoia and social discord.

So Canada and the world stand once again at this crossroad — do we build walls or bridges? Do we cede victory to these sub-humans who revel in their ability to shed massive amounts of human blood purely to instill terror — and refuse sanctuary to their fleeing victims? Or do we teach our children well, about the dead end that such cowardice necessarily delivers?

Do we again commit the sin of rejecting refugee ships like the St. Louis in Halifax or the Komagata Maru in Vancouver. Will a future Pier 21 curator mount a photo of a dead Syrian family, next to the courageous but rejected Polish family?

Because there is another lesson from Paris, and all the horrors like it, that we will no doubt yet have to endure.

Terrorism works.

My confidence in a serenely safe Japan was shattered the day I missed by 25 minutes the Tokyo subway hit by the bloody sarin attack. My rage at the IRA was deep and murderous when my wife left Harrods half an hour before they killed London’s Christmas shoppers. I was an enthusiastic consumer of angry rhetoric and demands for excessive measures. It was some time before Charles Taylor’s wisdom slowly overwhelmed my determination to support lashing out in rage.

Terrorists always have only one goal: to stab us into becoming the beasts their propaganda requires. To provoke the kind of sectarian intolerance and violent over-reaction that offers visible proof to their audiences that we are indeed bloodthirsty racists and simply liars about the values of tolerance and inclusion we claim.

So, in the days ahead, when we have had the time to reflect on the egregious horror of Paris on Friday night, when the images of so many corpses on blood-soaked streets begin to fade, let us also recall the photo of the tiny shattered body of Alan Kurdi on a Turkish beach.

Yes, we must all use our military, security and intelligence capabilities to crush ISIS — and Canada’s contribution in both military and humanitarian assistance must be greater.

But as hard as it may be to feel confident in doing so today, we must not repeat the mistakes of the last century. We must welcome into our neighbourhoods the victims fleeing this 21st century terror as future Canadians.

 Source: We must not allow terrorists to turn us into beasts | Toronto Star

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Margaret MacMillan: Terrorism almost fully died out in the 20th century. It could burn out again

2015/11/18 Leave a comment

Lessons of history:

In the next few days and weeks there will be many attempts to find explanations just as there have been after previous atrocities. Poverty is often singled out but that does not account for the fact that so often, as with 9/11, the perpetrators have come from the middle classes and had solid professions. Religion is blamed but the connection of many previous terrorists to Islam has frequently been tenuous. When two would-be jihadists left the United Kingdom a couple of years ago for the Middle East they took with them a copy of Islam for Dummies.

What we can say is that we are now seeing the dark side of globalization. The spread of information, ideas and above all images, are powerful tools of radicalization. Young men and women can identify with causes thousands of miles away. Most stop there, but a handful select themselves as warriors with a mission, even if it means they and others will die in its name. Every society has its maladjusted who, for whatever reason, feel themselves neglected, humiliated or marginalized. The cause does not make them radical; rather they are in search of something that will make them feel important and powerful. That could be the radical variants of Islam — or Christianity or Buddhism — today, or, as in the 19th and 20th centuries, revolutionary socialism or fascism.

The reasons for which people are prepared to commit terrorist acts against civilians have varied over time but terrorism itself is not new. In the years before the First World War anarchists in Europe and North America threw bombs, blew up railway tracks and assassinated key political figures from President McKinley of the United States to the Tsar of Russia. Their goal, as much as they had one, was to destroy what they saw as a corrupt and decadent capitalist society. One anarchist who calmly finished his meal in a restaurant in Paris and then shot a fellow diner said simply ‘I shall not be striking an innocent if I strike the first bourgeois that I meet.’ And like the terrorists of today those of the past frequently radicalised themselves. The young conspirators who succeeded in killing the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo ordered and read the works of the leading anarchists of the time. Gavrilo Princip, who fired the fatal shots, died without showing the slightest remorse for the catastrophe his act had brought on European civilization.

The terrorists of the past, like their counterparts today, were well aware of the disturbing effects of random acts of violence. In Barcelona, a bomb at a performance of an opera which killed 29 innocent people served to terrify the local population. In Paris in the early 1890s a series of attacks on the cafes, business offices, or the French parliament, spread panic and for a time Parisians avoided public spaces. Terrorists then as now knew the value of publicity both to call attention to their cause and to spread fear. Where in the past terrorists used handbills and letters to the newspapers, today they have access to a much greater range of techniques from tweets to professionally made videos such as the ones ISIS makes of its atrocities. And in the past as now there was the copy-cat effect. Terrorists imitated earlier atrocities perhaps to demonstrate their own revolutionary determination. In a chilling recent article in the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik explores the ways in which successive students carrying out mass shootings in American high schools have consciously modelled themselves on the Columbine murders right down to getting the same type of weapons and wearing similar clothes.

As we think about the events in Paris and wonder what is to come next, it is not much comfort to think that we have been through such things before. While history cannot offer us clear lessons as to how to respond, it can perhaps help us to avoid making some mistakes. We should remember the importance of good security and policing. Already this year effective surveillance and co-operation among police forces have uncovered and foiled several terrorist plots in Europe. Governments have to be careful not to act hastily in ways that can be counter-productive. An indiscriminate crackdown on, for example, all mosques and Muslim organizations, runs the risk of alienating a significant community.

The aim of terrorists is not just to panic societies but to sow divisions among them. Already in some of the responses in France and across Europe we are hearing demands that immigration from the Middle East be halted. An Egyptian passport found near the stadium was initially said to have belonged to one of the terrorists. It now appears to have belonged to a man who was killed. Whatever the truth people are already jumping to conclusions. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front Party, is suggesting that France needs to drastically tighten its border controls and that French society is under threat from its own Muslims. If such reactions take strong hold in France and elsewhere across Europe, there is a grave danger that moderate and even secular Muslims, which most in Europe are, will feel themselves no longer part of European society.

Source: Margaret MacMillan: Terrorism almost fully died out in the 20th century. It could burn out again | National Post

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Internet plays role in terrorism, but is rarely the single cause, study says

2015/11/17 Leave a comment

Despite the previous government’s rhetoric, some good work done:

The Liberal government is inheriting a new study into the “root causes” of terrorism – a study the Harper government ordered last year, despite mocking Justin Trudeau’s call for the same basic research.

The report into how the internet plays into violent extremism concludes the web does have a role, though its psychological and social effects are often overstated, and says more research is needed.

The $40,635 study, delivered to Public Safety in late June, is an ironic rebuttal to Harper and others who dismissed Trudeau for wanting to “commit sociology” rather than combat terrorism as a crime requiring policing and surveillance tools.

“The internet is almost never in itself a sufficient nor a necessary causal factor of violent extremism,” concludes the study by five Canadian criminologists.

“It would be wrong to think of the internet as a monocausal and homogenous factor that impacts individual trajectories towards clandestine political violence in the same way.”

CBC News obtained a copy of the document under the Access to Information Act.

The report is among five that Public Safety commissioned in October 2014 as part of the Kanishka Project, a $10-million anti-terror initiative spawned by the inquiry into the 1985 Air India bombing.

The internet study ordered by Public Safety does just that, referring to the “biographical preconditions” that make individuals susceptible to becoming violent extremists, including their “social isolation and marginalization.”

A key section of the study assembles 15 case studies of violent extremists, eight of them Canadian, including Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the Parliament Hill gunman who attacked on Oct. 22 last year. Zehaf-Bibeau is classed as “Jihadism/ISIS inspired,” but the group also includes Justin Bourque, an “anti-establishment” killer who gunned down five Mounties in Moncton, N.B., killing three. The list also has three “right-wing” examples from abroad.

The lead author of the report, Benjamin Ducol of Laval University, defends the inclusion of non-jihadists.

“By focusing too much on the jihadi threats, and on the jihadi militancies, we are missing other kinds of militancies that can be quite dangerous for Canadians’ safety and in terms of national security threats,” Ducol said in an interview.

The internet report drew on news media accounts as well as court records, but the group was denied access to confidential police intelligence on these cases, said Ducol, who’s seeking permission from Public Safety to produce a scholarly article on the findings.

“The internet is part of our daily life, so it kind of makes sense that it’s going to be part of the radicalization process,” he said.

Each case unique

But the impact is “very different from one case to another. … We’re still at the beginning of understanding how the internet plays a role.”

Source: Internet plays role in terrorism, but is rarely the single cause, study says – Politics – CBC News

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Legal distinction between terrorists and criminals is ‘hazy,’ experts say

2015/02/17 Leave a comment

Good discussion among experts on some of the challenges in defining terrorism (beyond the obvious cases):

“The problem of defining terrorism has been a thorny one from the get-go,” said terrorism expert John Thompson, vice president of Strategic Capital and Intelligence Group.

“Terrorism overlaps with so many other activities. When does a violent protest become terrorism? When does some sort of psychotic episode where someone is acting out become terrorism? It’s a very hazy border.”

In Canada, section 83.01 of the Criminal Code defines terrorism as an act committed “in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause” with the intention of intimidating the public’s security or compelling a person, government or organization to do or refrain from doing an act.

Thompson said this definition was intentionally general and open to interpretation, but the key element is a political or ideological motivation.

“Terrorists can attack literally anything and they have, but the motivation has to be more political than anything else. Terrorism has always got an ideology involved in it,” he said.

Two suspects [Halifax shopping mall planned attack] have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Had they been accused of terrorism, the range of offences and potential punishment would have been much greater, said Thompson.

“Some of our terrorism legislation is high-powered and we don’t want it to be used for every single case,” he said.

Legal distinction between terrorists and criminals is ‘hazy,’ experts say – The Globe and Mail.

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Barbara Kay: When it comes to Islam, the media needs to ditch the ‘narrative,’ and report the truth

2015/01/08 Leave a comment

What Kay misses, in her reductionist approach to ideology and extremism of all kinds, is what are the factors that push some to violence and what are the ones that increase resilience to these appeals.

With lone-wolf extremists, it is clear that mental illness and other issues can be one of the factors that push them over the edge. It does not mean that Islamist ideology is not involved; it is just that there can be other factors as well that make some individuals more susceptible.

And I would distinguish between these kinds of attacks and the more “sophisticated”and “professional” attacks that took place on Charlie Hebdo.

And of course, none of this reduces the horror over any attack, no matter the motives or factors:

We’re in the middle of a Hot War with Islamism. There will be more attempted, or realized, lone-wolf terrorist attacks on our shores. In the event, it would be helpful if the liberal media could ditch its love affair with narratives, and stick with the truth.

The right-wing media also should ‘ditch its love affair with narratives’ and recognize the complexity of the various factors involved.

Barbara Kay: When it comes to Islam, the media needs to ditch the ‘narrative,’ and report the truth | National Post.

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Opinion: There’s no link between terrorism and multiculturalism – Jedwab

2014/11/29 Leave a comment

Jack Jedwab of ACS notes the many fallacies in Farid Rohani’s piece on multiculturalism and radicalization (Opinion: Multiculturalism should not be misused to justify divisions: Farid Rohani):

Yet Rohani makes a pernicious link between these heinous acts and Canadian multiculturalism. He establishes this false association by suggesting that the Canadian multicultural framework has seen “activists promote group traditions as having more importance than individual freedoms,” and suggests it creates an environment that enables terrorists to propagate their views. He further states that multiculturalism “is being used to create different groups that contest our tolerant democracy.”

It has been increasingly common for detractors of multiculturalism to make such claims without identifying the culprits. Rohani does precisely this and, regrettably, contributes to the spread of what he describes as “quiet intolerance,” the very thing about which he expresses concern. His observation will end up inviting unfair generalizations about minority religious groups that will fuel the divisions that he suggests he seeks to remedy.

Rohani implies that such things as forced and arranged marriages, honour killings and teaching of hate toward other religions or toward homosexuals or death warrants against apostates are also to be attributed to flawed communications about what pluralism and multiculturalism entail. In general, such things are far more prevalent in non-democratic societies that reject diversity and multiculturalism. The individuals who engage in such egregious acts for the most part wish to erode multiculturalism and replace it with a model of society that would limit individual freedoms and undermine intercultural harmony.

Rohani specifically singles out newcomers to Canada as being particularly exposed to distortion about our national identity and values. So what would he make of the fact that the killings in Ottawa and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu were carried out by individuals born and raised in Canada? Indeed, newcomers value the opportunity to live in our democracy and there is no evidence that they are more likely than non-immigrants to want to undermine it.

Opinion: There’s no link between terrorism and multiculturalism | Montreal Gazette.

Clear case of ‘multicultiphobia,’ to use Phil Ryan’s phrase.

Jedwab also cites the recent polling done for the Canadian Race Relations Foundation as supporting this view (report-on-canadian-values), as do most polls that I have seen.

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Canadians with alleged terrorist links – Canada – CBC News

2014/11/26 Leave a comment

The list as compiled by CBC.

And the normal mix of those who have dual nationality (or who have citizenship rights from another country) and who can have their citizenship revoked, and those who have Canadian citizenship only, who cannot:

Likely Dual Nationals

Likely Canadian Only

Canadians charged by the RCMP but still at large

Ferid Ahmed Imam

Ahmad Waseem

Maiwand Yar

Hasibullah Yusufzai

Canadians reported to be fighting or supporting extremists abroad, but not charged

Mohammed Ali

Sami Elabi

Um m Haritha

Omar Hassan

Mohammad Ibrahim

Abu Dujana al-Muhajir

Farah Mohamed Shirdon

Collin Gordon

Gregory Gordon

John Maguire

Canadians accused of possible terrorist links by other countries

Faker Boussora

Abderraouf Jdey

Amer El-Maati

Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips

Canadians with alleged terrorist links – Canada – CBC News.

And the accompanying article and debate whether the list should be broader (i.e., lower standard of proof to be on the list):

Who are the most wanted extremists in Canada?

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Canadians in terrorist armies threaten us all – CSIS and Canadian Responsibility

2014/08/25 Leave a comment

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director Michel Coulombe’s op-ed on radicalization. Not much new in his overview, and no particular insights into why some are radicalized or not, but nevertheless worth reading.

I found however his comment below interesting in light of the Government’s recent changes to the Citizenship Act providing for revocation in cases of dual nationals engaged in terrorist activities.

Coulombe is saying that this is a “Canadian problem.”

Indeed, so why therefore should we banish or exile them, rather than locking them up in Canada?

Even if a Canadian extremist does not immediately return, he or she is still a Canadian problem. No country can become an unwitting exporter of terrorism without suffering damage to its international image and relations. Just as Canada expects other nations to prevent their citizens from harming Canadians and Canadian interests, we too are obligated to deny Canadian extremists the ability to kill and terrorize people of other countries.

 

Same point made by Chris Selley of the National Post, among others (Stripping jihadis’ citizenship feels good. But what good does it do?, Actually, my citizenship is a right):

Canadians in terrorist armies threaten us all – The Globe and Mail.

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Misbahuddin Ahmed found guilty of 2 terrorism charges and ISIS Recruitment Video with Canadian

2014/07/14 Leave a comment

Yet another terrorism conviction. Born in Pakistan, raised in Montreal, radicalized in Canada, a likely candidate for citizenship revocation under the new Citizenship Act:

Conspiring to knowingly facilitate a terrorist activity carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison, while participation in the activities of a terrorist group has a 10-year maximum term.

Ahmed will be sentenced on Sept. 15.

Mark Ertel, Misbahuddin Ahmeds lawyer, said after the verdict that his client was misguided for a short period of his life but is a good man. “I’m devastated by the verdict, it’s never easy to lose a case and it’s especially hard to see someone like this be convicted of these types of offences,” said Ahmeds lawyer, Mark Ertel.

“He’s a good man, a family man, the jury obviously found that for a short period of time in his life he was misguided but the acquittal on the third count proves they realized if there was any danger to Canadians or anyone he put an end to it.”

Crown lawyers said during the trial that Ahmed was a “committed jihadist” with an eye on potential Canadian targets, pointing to a bag in his basement they alleged held bomb-making materials.

Misbahuddin Ahmed found guilty of 2 terrorism charges – Ottawa – CBC News.

And another example of a terrorist or extremist, born, raised and radicalized in Canada, and would not be subject to revocation (if he were still alive):

An Ontario janitor who died while fighting with an extremist group in Syria said in a posthumous video released Friday that he had left Canada because he could no longer live among non-Muslims.

“Life in Canada was good,” André Poulin, a Muslim convert who fled to Syria following a string of arrests in Timmins, Ont., said in an Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham recruitment video that encouraged others to follow his path.

“I had money, I had good family. But at the end of the day, it’s still dar al-kufr [a land of disbelief] and at the end of the day you cannot obey Allah fully as you can by living in a Muslim country, in an Islamic state,” he said.

…. But Poulin was hardly a regular Canadian. He was a troubled youth who had repeated brushes with the law for crimes such as uttering threats until he left to remake himself as a jihadist fighter. He was killed last summer in northern Syria.

“He accepted Islam in a land at war with Islam,” a narrator said in the video, referring to Canada, “in a land with few Muslims, in a land where evil, kufr [disbelief] and sin called him from every direction and corner to succumb to Satan and to his desires.”

It said he had married after arriving in Syria and that his wife was pregnant when he was killed while trying to capture the Mennegh airport. In his address from the grave, Poulin implored recruits to leave the West and join him.

“My brothers, how can you answer to Allah when you live on the same street, when you’re using their light and you’re paying taxes to them and they use these taxes to assist their war on Islam. You can’t live as a Muslim,” he said, adding those who can’t fight should “give money.”

The flow of radicalized youths to Syria has become a top priority for Canadian security and intelligence officials, who fear recruits could one day return home, bringing their paramilitary training and violent anti-Western ideology with them.

Parents of those lured to Syria have also becoming increasingly vocal, calling for government action to deal with radicalization and recruitment. Several dozen Canadians are fighting in Syria, and some have joined ISIS, which has seized parts of northern Syria and Iraq through a campaign of guerrilla warfare, suicide bombings and mass executions.

Concerned about the number of Canadians leaving to join armed factions in Syria, imams from across the country issued a statement last month warning Muslim youths against traveling abroad to fight in foreign conflicts.

The Canadian Council of Imams denounced the “narrow, bigoted, dogmatic distortions of the purveyors of violence and terror,” and called for “meaningful discussions, to engage in preventative strategies and to find meaningful solutions to this growing threat in our country.”

‘Regular Canadian’ killed in Syria conflict featured in slick, new ISIS propaganda video

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