Looking for Alternatives

"It's not enough just to identify potential extremist violent individuals. You have to have the tools and the powers to keep them under surveillance and monitor them somehow."
"[Both criminal investigations and intervention strategies are required] ... They're not exclusive. You need to have both approaches because they're going to work with different types of people."
Dr. Bruce Hoffman, director, Center for Security Studies, Georgetown University, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service

"[RCMP holds biweekly meetings] ...where we look for options to intervene with the high-risk travellers -- folks who have not yet gone, folks who we've tried to work with, folks who maybe are approaching the criminal space and we haven't got enough evidence to charge. We're looking for alternatives."
RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson

"Historically, efforts for safe-guarding Canada's national security used to be primarily focused on enforcement and disruption. However, in the past year, the RCMP is now also focusing its efforts on preventive measures to foster individual and community resilience to the dangerous narrative employed by violent extremist groups."
"In the case where an intervention would be required, the RCMP would identify support resources including local law enforcement, community partners, and the families involved to engage with the individual and ensure that he or she is exposed to a positive influence."
RCMP St. Greg Cox

The used Corolla driven by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau in his attack on Parliament sits parked as police guard the entrance to the Parliament buildings.

Some are on the radar of internal security identification, and some are not. Martin Rouleau was detained as he arrived at the airport to leave for Turkey as a convenient destination from which he could cross over to Syria to join Islamic Jihad. His passport removed, he simply created his own jihad right at home, aiming his vehicle directly toward a group of Armed Forces personnel, killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, leading to a police chase and his own death.

His own parents were concerned enough about his radicalization into Islamist jihad to contact authorities. So the intervention was there, both the security authorities and the parents were involved and he wasn't deterred. Waseem Ahmad left his Ontario family to fight in Syria, and returned when he was wounded to take advantage of Canada's medical services. His family intervened, as did security personnel and his local mosque. None of which stopped him from returning to the fray.

"You're not going to save everyone", cautioned Mubin Shaikh who had worked with police as an intelligence mole in the Toronto 18 episode. His was one of those instances where it was possible to get insider information to enable the advance of an investigation and retrieval of evidence sufficient to proceed to trial. A tactic used by the Toronto Police Service in employing an undercover officer to befriend Mohamed Hersi and to collect the evidence used to successfully try him, leading to his ten-year sentence for attempting to join Al-Shabab in Somalia.

Although all of Canada's apprehended-to-date would-be jihadists were adept at making the connections they looked for online, the current crop are being influenced by the professional-grade and atrocity-prone-attractant of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham. Perhaps it's a little bit of a sham for the RCMP to speak in such kindly terms as 'folks' to describe Islamist jihadis champing at the scimitar to get to Syria.

Much less profess the belief that forging an alliance with family, friends, clerics, the security apparatus might make some positive inroads in turning the already-committed jihadis from their course of action, be it external or internal; with intentions to travel abroad to indulge their wildest dreams of unbridled violence with no legal consequences, or introduce jihad right here and take their chances on the consequences.

Martyrdom by becoming a suicidist still represents that glorified achievement of sacrifice to the common goal of universal Islamic caliphate aspiration. The "high-risk travellers" have been identified but not neutralized, while others in the same category have been neither; perhaps they're more cautious in leaving a trail that leads directly to their intentions. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was clearly of the unknown variety.

After the fact, the RCMP is investigating his "interactions with numerous individuals" in a brief period before his fatally shooting reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo in the back as he stood honour guard over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the National War Memorial, then went on to invade Parliament to add to the notches on his old-fashioned pump-action hunting rifle.

  Michael Zehaf-Bibeau in a photo shot by a tourist in Ottawa.

"The investigation is focusing on whether these interactions could have contributed or facilitated, in any way the terrorist attack subsequently committed by Zehaf-Bibeau", stated the RCMP. "This nationally scoped investigation remains exceptionally active and fluid", explained the commissioner. "The RCMP undertakes to get as much information to the public as quickly as we can", completes the long-winded response when the shorter "we just don't know", would do just as well.

In the meantime, civilized Ottawa has tasked the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate the shooting of Zehaf-Bibeau, shot to death by Kevin Vickers, the House of Commons sergeant-at-arms and his security staff, in the Hall of Honours within the Centre Block of Parliament, just adjacent to where the Prime Minister and his caucus were conducting their weekly meeting.