Phil Gurski
Phil Gurski is the President and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting. He worked as a senior strategic analyst at CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) from 2001-2013, specialising in Al Qaeda/Islamic State-inspired violent extremism and radicalisation. From 1983 to 2001 he was employed as a senior multilingual analyst at Communications Security Establishment, specialising in the Middle East. He also served as senior special advisor in the National Security Directorate at Public Safety Canada from 2013 until his retirement from the civil service in May 2015, and as consultant for the Ontario Provincial Police’s Anti-Terrorism Section (PATS) in 2015. Mr. Gurski has presented on Al Qaeda/Islamic State-inspired violent extremism and radicalisation across Canada and around the world. He is the author of “The Threat from Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West” (Rowman and Littlefield) and “Western Foreign Fighters: the threat to homeland and international security” (Rowman and Littlefield). He regularly blogs (Terrorism in Canada and the West – available on his Web site) and tweets on terrorism.
Follow Phil Gurksi on Twitter @borealissaves
Introduction Academic research began to focus specifically on terrorism in the 1960s and 1970s, although it would take until the 9/11 attacks before the burgeoning field took on its current form and significantly increased output. From those early days in the mid-to-late twentieth century onwards, terrorism research has had a distinctly applied focus, with a […]
Introduction In Syria and Iraq, the general consensus is that Islamic State (IS) has been militarily defeated, but the terror group is now popping up elsewhere and breathing new life into its global caliphate. In an April 29 video, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi mentioned that pledges of allegiance from the Khorasan region had been […]
In Nigeria, current strategies for the rehabilitation and reintegration of violent extremist offenders—as exemplified by the government-initiated Operation Safe Corridor—have lacked the community support and assistance needed to ensure their success. Through a series of five workshops with traditional and religious leaders and government representatives, conducted across Bauchi and Abuja, as well as an intensive […]