Last week the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested several persons in Ontario, Canada for alleged terrorist offenses which included plotting to blow up targets in Canada and funneling money to Afghani insurgents fighting Canadian soldiers. They were arrested for their activities in the planning stages of a potential attack. Police have emphasized that this group had been under surveillance for about a year, and was months away from execution.
Clearly, the most successful counter terrorism efforts are those that nip activities in the bud, at a distance from execution.
(As an aside, because I cannot resist the temptation, one of the arrestees, Dr. Khurram Sher, a London, Ontario pathologist had auditionned in 2008 for Canadian Idol and can be seen on youtube moonwalking to his rendition of “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne.) The world of terrorists is indeed complicated. We would do well to study the factions, tenets and tangents of the Muslim world. I found the following interview with Tarek Fatah to this point and very interesting. He was interviewed by the CBC about the recent arrests, and was asked about the increase of homegrown terrorists in Canada and the radicalization of Muslims. See the video below.
