Source: Canwest News Service (Canada.com)
URL: [link]
Date: March 13, 2008
OTTAWA - Countering the threat of terrorist radicalization at home is now the chief preoccupation of Canada's spy agency.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), in its latest annual report, says while the threat of terrorism from foreign extremists continues to pose the most immediate danger to Canada and Canadians, the agency's main focus is "terrorism inspired by the ideology of al-Qaida, and the issue of radicalization of citizens or residents."
CSIS played a critical role in last summer's arrests of several Toronto-area men and youths, all Canadians, charged by the RCMP with conspiring to bomb government buildings in the city and storm Parliament. The suspects deny the allegations.
"The radicalization issue is really on the top of the government's security agenda these days," says Wesley Wark, a visiting research professor at the University of Ottawa and co-director of the Institute for Research on Public Policy's Security and Democracy Project.
"That's partly a reflection of what they're learning from overseas allies and partners, particularly the British, partly with ongoing concerns about the prospect of some form of ultimate blowback from Canada's involvement in Afghanistan and partly a reflection of the internal cases that we've had including," the pending prosecutions against the Toronto group and accused Ottawa terrorist Momin Khawaja.
Jonathan Evans, head of Britain's domestic MI5 security service, recently spoke of al-Qaida recruiting teenagers there as young as 15. Other British officials say "self-radicalizing kids" have become a more threat than professional terrorist operatives from overseas.
Several of the biggest terror attacks and threats in the west in recent years - from the transit attacks in Madrid and London - have come from previously unremarkable, law-abiding citizens largely unknown to authorities.
But a CSIS study found a "very rapid process" is transforming some youths from angry activists into jihadist terrorists intent on killing for their religion.
The study, obtained last year by the National Post under the Access to Information Act, says a few have embraced terrorism with frightening speed after becoming enraged over what they perceive as a western "war on Islam" and being coaxed on by extremist preachers.
"The most important factor for radicalization is the perception that Islam is under attack from the West.
Jihadists also feel they must pre-emptively and violently defend Islam from these perceived enemies," it concludes.
They are also one of the most difficult types of terrorists for security services to counter, forcing security intelligence and law enforcement to shift strategies.
The CSIS report, meanwhile, notes:
. The agency in 2006-07 countered "the efforts of state and non-state actors to acquire materials or technology in Canada that could be used for producing weapons of mass destruction." No details are offered.
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