No Action Without Reaction

"Canadian military personnel are present in a number of locations in Europe. Attackers may or may not be able to distinguish between Canadian military uniforms and those of other nations, but being identified as Canadian would not necessarily make attack less likely."
"Canadian personnel have served throughout the intervention in Afghanistan and continue to serve -- albeit in a non-combat role -- in that country. Canada has also contributed support to the French intervention in Mali; prior to the collapse of that nation's military forces, Canadian soldiers were prominently identified in Canadian media in the summer of 2011 as being present in Mali as trainers."
"While there have been debates on jihadist forums about the legitimacy of attacks on non-military targets, military facilities and personnel appear to be seen as acceptable targets whether deployed or at home."
"Small-scale attacks offer advantages and disadvantages to extremists. Simple, straightforward attacks using readily available weapons and minimal preparation on undefended targets are a better match with the actual capabilities of most extremists."
Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre report

Those seeking connection to the romance of al-Qaeda-approved activities need only look to the online magazine dedicated to informing and inspiring action from within the Muslim community wherever prospects for recruitment may have established themselves. Articles have been published lauding the self-starter, the lone wolf, the single jihadist who aspires to do his reverential duty to Islam's dictates to defeat the enemy wherever he is, to the greater glory of Islam.



The Tsarnaev brothers garnered their brilliant idea of producing pressure-cooking bombs from al-Qaeda's Inspire magazine. The magazine wracks the innovative brains of their collaborators to come up with simple instructions for simple devices to be readily home-made, even in their mothers' own kitchens, to effectively set out to create terror and bloody vengeance for the Islamophobes who have set out to 'conquer Islam' and who 'prey upon Muslims'.

The arrest in Canada of a series of hyphenated-Canadians of Muslim and Middle Eastern backgrounds who have brooded over the perceived treatment of Muslims by the West and convinced themselves that it is incumbent upon them to right the great wrongs they perceive by planning to mount destructive attacks on government sources, on civilian enclaves, on security establishments, has led to intelligence agents uncovering those plots prior to execution.

The more successful initiatives that shocked bystanders such as the wretched attack by two Muslim converts in Britain on a British soldier, saw Private Lee Rigby attacked and knifed multiple times and almost beheaded on a London street by a 28-year-old Nigerian-born convert who "loved" al-Qaeda as "a soldier of Allah". At his trial he testified that the killing of Private Rigby was not murder as Muslims are "at war" with Britain.

Three days after that British attack that shocked the country, a 21-year-old Muslim convert motivated by "religious ideology" who had "wanted to attack representative of the state" stabbed a French soldier in the neck. The simple fact is that intelligence agents can be on the alert for such incidents in the hopes of preventing them, but that kind of diligence to the potential of violence is beyond the aptitude and willingness of most ordinary people, including those belonging to the armed services.

A National Defence spokesman commented that Canadian Armed Forces members while trained and equipped to deal with the dangers they face, are like anyone else; fairly well oblivious to the possibility that they may be singled out at home in Canada, walking down a public street, or exiting a building. "That being said, it is impossible to eliminate all risks", said Daniel Le Bouthillier, speaking for the Department of National Defence.

The attacks that have taken place abroad on the visible emblems of some countries' armed services have, however, alerted and alarmed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, RCMP and others involved in Canadian security to the obvious possibility that random acts of vengeance against a perceived enemy may take place in Canada, just as they've occurred elsewhere.

How to meet that challenge is another matter altogether.