Canada seeing spike in deaths due to terrorism
TORONTO • Despite the risks, Buri Mohamed Hamza returned to Somalia to serve the country’s struggling federal government, but on the weekend al-Shabaab extremists struck his hotel with a car bomb, killing the former Toronto resident.
The zoologist was the 10th Canadian to be killed abroad by terrorists in 2016, the worst year for such deaths since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a terrorism database. Nine other Canadians have also died in Burkina Faso, the Philippines and Indonesia.
“Overseas exposure of Canadians to terrorism seems to be up, markedly so,” terrorism researcher James O. Ellis said. “The widespread travel and work of Canadians has exposed them to greater danger this year than we’ve seen in many recent previous years.”
Ellis is a research affiliate at the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society, or TSAS, which maintains a database of known terrorism incidents. Excluding attacks on Canadian military personnel in Afghanistan, the database points to 2016 as the worst in 15 years.
Canadians have not necessarily been targeted more than in previous years, but they have been falling prey to overseas extremist groups intent on killing westerners, said Alan Bell, president of the Toronto-based security firm Global Risk International Inc.
“It’s pure bad luck. You’ve got more Canadians going around the world, and you’ve got Canadians working in countries that were relatively safe until probably the last 18 months, particularly in Africa, where (the Islamic State group) and affiliates are very active,” he said.
There has been no official acknowledgment that terrorism deaths have spiked, but Prime Minister Justice Trudeau’s statement on last week’s National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism mentioned the recent attacks on Canadians, as well as the June 20 killing of 14 Canadian embassy guards in Kabul.
Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion paid tribute Tuesday to the latest Canadian victim, who also had Somali citizenship and was Somalia’s state minister for the environment. Dion lamented the “senseless depravity” of the attack on Mogadishu’s Nasa Hablod Hotel.
“The number of Canadians killed by terrorism in the past year is a stark reminder that we are not immune to the threat of terrorism, which can strike anywhere, any time,” Joseph Pickerill, a spokesman for Dion, told the National Post.
A report published in March by TSAS found that 53 Canadians had been killed in overseas terrorism incidents between 2001 and 2015. The deadliest year was 2001, when 25 Canadians lost their lives. Afghanistan and Iraq were the “most frequent sites of foreign terrorist attacks with Canadian victims,” it said.
Fourteen Canadians died in attacks in those two countries, the study said, adding that “Canadians who fall victim to terrorist attacks abroad appear to be visiting areas where terrorists are active, rather than being sought out as the specific target themselves.”
Canadians were most often victims of terrorist attacks targeting foreign businesses or tourist sites, restaurants and hotels. “In addition, Canadian journalists and media personnel were also frequent targets of terrorist attacks, particularly in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq,” the study said.
Almost half the attacks to claim Canadian victims were bombings (42 per cent), followed by armed assaults (36 per cent) and kidnappings (18 per cent). Two of the deaths in 2016 were the result of kidnappings by Abu Sayyaf extremists, who kidnapped Robert Hall and John Ridsdel for ransom and then beheaded them.
On Jan. 14, Tahar AmerOuali, a 70-year-old from Laval, Que., was killed when terrorists attacked a Starbucks in Jakarta. The next day, gunmen from an alQaida affiliate stormed a hotel in Burkina Faso, killing six Quebecers on a humanitarian mission.
Danny Eisen, co-founder of the Canadian Coalition Against Terror, a victims’ organization, said the increase was the “inevitable consequence” of the spread of alQaida-type extremism. “This malevolent ideology is a key catalytic ingredient in the incubation of radicalization and terrorist violence, wherever it takes root,” he said.
The deadliest terror attack in Canadian history was the 1985 bombing of an Air India passenger plane by B.C. Sikh extremists, which left 329 dead, 268 of them Canadians. In addition, 158 Canadian Forces members were killed during the Afghanistan mission.
Pickerill said the government was contributing $51 million over three years to building the capacity of counterterrorism programs in the Middle East and North Africa. In his statement on Hamza’s killing, Dion said Canada was committed “to global efforts to eradicate the scourge of terrorism.”