Threat: An Evolving Terrorist Threat

• Author: Craig Forcese; Kent Roach
• Pages: 83-114

83

CHAPTER THREE

Threat: An Evolving Terrorist Threat

I. INTRODUCTION

Terrorist Designs

In , an al-Qaida recording singled out Canada — along with France,

Italy, Germany, and Australia — for allying itself “with A merica to attack us

in Afghanistan.” On the tape, the speaker — likely Osa ma bin Laden — as-

serted, “as you kill you will be k illed, and as you bomb you will be bombed.”

Subsequently, Canadian ocials pointed often to this statement — and

a follow-up issued in  — in describing the terrorist threat to Canada.

Documents seized by US soldiers from his Pakistani compound suggested

that bin Laden continued to harbour terrorist designs on Canada (among

other countries) up until his death.

Al-Qaida is not the only terrorist group to menace Canada. e So-

mali terrorist group al-Shabaab has attacked people in Uganda for watching

football games and targeted courthouses and other venues in Somalia. Most

famously, it killed  innocent shoppers in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi,

Kenya, and  innocent students at Kenya’s Garissa University. It also called

for terrorist attacks in Canada in February  during the Bill C- debate.

e video called “upon our Muslim brothers, particularly those in the West,

to answer the call of Allah and ta rget disbelievers wherever they are . . . what

if such an attack was to occur in the Mall of America in Minnesota? Or the

West Edmonton Mall in Canada? Or in London’s Oxford Street?”

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Al-Shabaab has exercised inuence over young Canadians, often of So-

mali descent. e rst Canadian convicted of attempting to leave Canada

to join a terrorist group was imprisoned for trying to join al-Shabaab. But

not everyone has been caught. Intelligence estimates from several years ago

suggest that as many as twenty Canadians have joined the terrorist group.

Most notoriously, in , six young Somali-C anadians left Toronto to ght

in the organization. At least four of them were killed. Two others reportedly

became disillusioned with the terrorist group and left it but remained in

Somalia.

Since then, some reports have suggested that Western recruitment into

al-Shabaab has declined because “al Shabaab has delegitimized itself” with

many correctly concluding that the group does not “understand Isla m.” e

US Department of State is apparently not convinced. In February , it

held counter–violent extremism meetings with the Somali community in

Toronto and Ottawa. In Chapter , we will suggest that such meetings are

a good idea, although it would have been a better idea for the Canad ian gov-

ernment to assume the lead.

A variety of foreign terrorist groups continue to attract Canadians. is

is a dark side of globalization — people may be in Cana da one day and trans-

national terrorists days later. Most recently, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and

Syria) has been in ascendance. Like its predecessors, that group has issued a

threatening call to arms. Weeks before the two terrorist attacks in October

, an ISIS audio recording had been shared widely on social media. e

propagandist on the recording stated as follows:

If you can kil l a disbelieving America n or European — especially the spite-

ful and lthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other

disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the

countries that entered into a coa lition against the Islamic St ate . . . kill him

in any manner or way however it may be.

Canadian foreign terrorist g hters associated with ISIS have recorded simila r

chilling messages.

And in a development that we have probably not seen in the West on

this scale since the Spanish Civil War, an apparently swelling number of

Canadians and thousands of other citizens of Western countries have joined

ISIS in Iraq and Syria, creating a new preoccupation with foreign terrorist

ghters.

Chapter Three: Threat

85

Terrorist Risk

ese terrorist groups have all broadcast sobering messages, and their calls

have resonated with at least some people. Stated intent may be an important

indicator of threat, especially when associated with groups of great depravity

and, indeed, evil. But deciding how and where to respond to evil requires a

clear-eyed assessment of the adversary ’s ability to act on its intent in a manner

aecting Canada and Canadians. Put another way, it is important to distin-

guish between great evil and great risk.

A failure to do so can muddle responses and contribute to the phenom-

enon of over- and underreaction discussed in the last chapter. On the one

hand, we should not ignore an adversary who has promised to harm us, or

our interests, and who may have the ability to act on that threat. To do so

may lead us to underreact, in the way we did with Air India. But on the

other hand, there is serious danger in conating struggles against evil with

an existential crisi s. e air campaign over Kosovo in the s, for example,

was about confronting evil — crimes a gainst humanity and feared genocide.

Canada’s participation in World War II was also about facing down evil but

was additionally an existential struggle in which there was serious doubt as

to whether democracy would persist on the planet.

In an existential crisis, a struggle for survival, many other values in a

society may be set aside. Our Emergencies Act recognizes this by allowing

some suspension of the regular law of the land while a lso containing valuable

pre-commitments not to repeat the mistakes of the past by interning citizens

on the basis of race, religion, or ethnic or national origin. It also provides for

parliamentary supervision and review (including access to secret informa-

tion), public inquiries, and compensation to those who have been harmed in

responding to existential th reats. Too readily asserting an ex istential struggle

in circumstances short of a true emergency — without the safeguards in the

Emergencies Act — risks creating a permanent emergency, one that sacrices

the rule of law and our other animating values.

ere is also danger in conating depravity with threat and then bund-

ling it with a war metaphor. A failure to distinguish between a true situation

of armed conict and smaller scale criminal conduct can produce an evil

greater than the one being confronted. at is becau se the laws of war accept

the use of lethal force as a proper instr ument of policy, at least when directed

at those labelled combatants; criminal law rules are more demanding, re-

quiring self-defence or other justications that narrow the circumstances in

which lethal force may be used. e laws of wa r accept that enemies may, and

indeed should, be killed without due process; criminal law rules are geared

toward due process. e laws of war accept that there will be collateral cas-

ualties and that innoc ents will be injured; crimina l law rules do not. e laws