http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/10/26/canadas-counter-terror-successes-prove-to-be-fleeting-it-seems-like-isis-has-awakened-the-zombies/

Stewart Bell | October 26, 2014 7:52 PM ET
More from Stewart Bell | @StewartBellNP

Martin Rouleau, left, unable to get to Syria because the RCMP seized his passport, killed a soldier with his car. Ahmad Waseem and Hasibullah Yusufzai managed to join Islamist militants in Syria.

HandoutsMartin Rouleau, left, unable to get to Syria because the RCMP seized his passport, killed a soldier with his car. Ahmad Waseem and Hasibullah Yusufzai managed to join Islamist militants in Syria.

Martin Rouleau was arrested at the airport as he was leaving for Turkey. Hasibullah Yusufzai was identified as an extremist after he turned up in Afghanistan. Ahmad Waseem came to the attention of police when he returned to Ontario with shrapnel wounds he got in Syria.

All three cases initially seemed like counter-terrorism success stories: Canadian police and intelligence agencies identified the young men as potential security threats and worked with their families, imams and communities to help them abandon their infatuation with Islamist violence.
But then Mr. Waseem somehow slipped away and returned to Syria. “Allah … give victory to our brothers in ISIS,” the Pakistani-Canadian wrote on Facebook this weekend. In January, Mr. Yusufzai, an associate of Ottawa gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, also found his way to Syria.

And last Monday, Mr. Rouleau, unable to get to Syria because the RCMP had seized his passport, struck close to home instead, allegedly ramming two Canadian Forces members with his Nissan Altima, killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent before police chased him and shot him dead.

“You’re not going to save everyone,” said Mubin Shaikh, whose time as a police and intelligence mole is documented in the new book Undercover Jihadi: Inside the Toronto 18, Al Qaeda-Inspired Homegrown Terrorism in the West. “And it seems like ISIS has awakened the zombies.”

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Pascal MarchandThe car allegedly used by Martin Rouleau to attack a pair of Canadian soldiers lies in a ditch in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. on Monday Oct. 20, 2014.

But there is little margin for error in counter-terrorism. And while police have had notable successes, stopping terror plots in 2006, 2010 and 2013, last week’s killings in Quebec and Ottawa have raised questions about Canada’s approach to dealing with youths obsessed with Islamist extremism.

Handout/DNDPatrice Vincent was killed Monday in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, in an apparent terror attack.

Despite being one of 90 “high-risk travellers” identified by the RCMP, Mr. Rouleau, who supported the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham in his online posts, was not charged because police lacked the evidence. Neither was he being watched when he ran down two soldiers in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que.

“It’s not enough just to identify potential extremist violent individuals,” said Bruce Hoffman, Director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. “You have to have the tools and the powers to keep them under surveillance and monitor them somehow.”

In the United States, police have taken a more aggressive — and controversial — approach. Those who have expressed an interest in extremist violence have had undercover officers or informants planted close to them. Dozens of successful prosecutions have resulted from such sting operations.
The Toronto Police Service used the same tactic after Mohamed Hersi came to their attention in 2010. An undercover officer was sent to befriend Hersi and collect evidence against him. In July, Hersi was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for attempting to join the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabab.

Professor Hoffman said both Hersi-type criminal investigations and softer intervention strategies are needed as part of a multi-layered response. “They’re not exclusive,” he said. “You need to have both approaches because they’re going to work with different types of people.”

To date, however, Mr. Yusufzai, a 25-year-old former Burnaby, B.C. security guard, is the only Canadian charged with terrorism in relation to the Syrian conflict. Five others, including Mr. Waseem, have been charged, but only with passport offences.

As for the rest, the RCMP convenes 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,” Comm. Bob Paulson testified to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Oct. 8. “We’re looking for alternatives.”

The government was expected to introduce new legislation this week that would give CSIS greater powers to monitor foreign fighters. Meanwhile, the RCMP said this weekend it was already rolling out a Countering Violent Extremism program, which it expects to have in place by the end of the year.

“Historically, efforts for safeguarding Canada’s national security used to be primarily focused on enforcement and disruption,” said Sgt. Greg Cox said. “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.”

The strategy involves working with local police to identify those at risk of radicalizing to violence and, in cooperation with families and the community, using “tactical intervention options” to try to prevent them from becoming hardcore extremists.

“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,” he said.

Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau was not among the 90 “high-risk travellers” flagged by the RCMP, although he was seen with Mr. Yusufzai. John Bathurst said his son David, a Muslim convert, had met both men at his mosque. “David had talked to the guys and they had philosophical discussions,” he said.

About six weeks ago, his son ran into Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau, who said he wanted to travel to Libya to study Arabic and the Koran. “The way he was talking, Dave knew he wasn’t right, he was off.” Zehaf-Bibeau’s mother said this weekend her son was mentally unstable and wanted to travel to Saudi Arabia.

Ray Boisvert, the former CSIS counter-terrorism chief and now a private security consultant, said what will be needed to protect Canadians from extremists is a combination of early detection by CSIS and police investigations, including complex, long-term undercover operations.

At the same time, community leaders will have to sense out the early signs of radicalization, and show no tolerance for it. He also believes Canada should help bring disenchanted jihadists back from places like Syria and subject them to monitoring or special detention “where we can work on further un-brainwasing the ‘cult’ messages they’ve received.”

More academic research and more parents speaking out about the suffering caused by radical violence would also help. “It will take parents, teachers, friends, imams, etc… at the most local level to pro-actively discuss this topic,” he said. “And after all that, brace ourselves for more violence.
“This has far from peaked.”

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