FDD Releases Groundbreaking Volume on Terrorist Groups in Canada

Washington, DC (FDD, August 20, 2012) – The Foundation for Defense of Democracies Press has released a groundbreaking volume on terrorist groups operating in Canada. Canada has seen a full range of terrorist groups operate with its borders, including those that profess nationalist, religious, political, ecological and revolutionary causes—even al Qaeda, which has defined Western countries’ strategic priorities over the past decade.

Terror in the Peaceable Kingdom, edited by FDD senior fellow Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Canadian Senator Linda Frum, traces the history of terrorist actors in Canada, including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab’s recruitment efforts among Canadian Somalis, and the presence of both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. The authors identify tools Canadians can apply to make their country less welcoming to these and other terrorist groups.

Expert contributors include Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior advisor on terrorism at the RAND Corporation; Matthew Levitt, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury; Michael Petrou, senior writer and foreign correspondent at Maclean’s; Ron Crelinsten, a prominent Canadian academic who has been studying the problem of combating terrorism in liberal democracies for over thirty years; National Post columnist Jonathan Kay; Farah Aw-Osman, a Somali-Canadian with more than twenty years of community work; James Bissett, a former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania; Angela Gendron, a senior fellow at the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies; Michael King, a doctoral student in the psychology department at McGill University, whose research focuses on understanding “radicalism”; D. Elaine Pressman, a Senior Fellow at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, Ottawa; Sheryl Saperia, FDD’s director for Canada; and John Thompson, the president of the Mackenzie Institute.

“As close neighbors, the United States and Canada depend heavily on each other in the fight against violent non-state actors,” Gartenstein-Ross said. “In this time of tight budgets, both countries will need to employ innovative strategies to address this problem, and we hope this volume will contribute to that effort.”

“This book contains contributions from experts with varying perspectives, on a wide range of topics,” added Senator Linda Frum. “It illustrates the full spectrum of terrorist challenges that Canada confronts, and provides some truly innovative methods for both understanding the problem and addressing it.”

In addition to his work at FDD, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a Ph.D. candidate and lecturer in world politics at the Catholic University of America, where he also received his M.A. He is the author or editor of 11 books and monographs, including Bin Laden’s Legacy (Wiley, 2011). He holds a J.D. from the New York University School of Law.

The Honourable Linda Frum was appointed to the Senate of Canada by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2009 to represent the Province of Ontario. She is a member of the Legal and Constitutional Committee and the Special Senate Committee on Anti-Terrorism. Frum is a past contributing editor to Maclean’s, a former columnist for the National Post, and the author of two bestselling Canadian books. A graduate of McGill University, she received an honorary degree from Yeshiva University in 2010.

Download the report here (PDF).

To discuss Terror in the Peaceable Kingdom, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ work, or schedule interviews with Daveed Gartenstein-Ross or Linda Frum, please contact David Donadio at  [email protected].

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The Foundation for Defense of Democracies is a non-profit, non-partisan policy institute dedicated exclusively to promoting pluralism, defending democratic values, and fighting the ideologies that drive terrorism.