"I think, for the moment, we're talking about lone wolves -- individual radicalization -- as you saw in Texas a couple of days ago."

"Jewish communities are less soft targets than they were two-and-a-half years ago. But I think they're still pretty inviting targets in terms of ... targets of opportunity."

"We had 20 years of the global war on terror, and then we figured out that we hadn't been paying sufficient attention to China. So you've seen this over-correction in American policy toward great-power competition."

"We are now at the apex of the emphasis of great-power competition over counter-terrorism."

"They're [governments] going to figure out that counter-terrorism is really significant." 

Ilan Berman, senior vice-president, American Foreign Policy Council, Washington 

 

"Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security."

"We support efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security. We do, however, take this position with regret because the current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order."

"Canada has long supported the imperative of neutralizing this grave global threat."

"It is a failure of the international system that this country repeatedly violated international laws, terrorized an entire region, and through extension the world, including the murder of Canadians."

"We would like international law to always and everywhere be respected. Canada's policy itself is to always and everywhere respect international law."

"Canada reaffirms that international law binds all belligerence [requiring a de-escalation of  hostilities]." 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

 

"I personally wish that Mr. Carney had not said anything in this regard. [Canadians] have no dog in that fight."

"[Carney's explicit public support for the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran places] Canada within the bull's-eye [from a Tehran perspective]."

"People say it's one more example of Israel killing Muslims ... So I think that paints another target on Israel's back."

Phil Gurski, former counter-terrorism analyst, Canadian Security Intelligence Service 

Smoke rises above Tehran as US and Israeli strikes continue to rain down (Image: Getty)

 

Israel and the United States attacked the Islamic Republic of Iran in coordinated but separate aerial bombardments on Saturday. The regime's nuclear sites, government offices, elite government and military figures were targeted for assassination, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Compounds of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij police were flattened. The U.S. focused on destroying the Iranian maritime fleet. Israel struck at countless rocket launchers and weapons depots. 

 

And on Sunday the Iranian clergy Grand Ayatollah Nouri Hamedani and Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi from the presidium of the Assembly of Seminary Students and Scholars in Qom, issued fatwas, authorizing Muslims anywhere and everywhere to wreak revenge for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's assassination. It is fairly well known that government agents of Iran and IRGC operatives have infiltrated the west, they have assumed positions of influence to those countless Muslims now living in Canada and the United States who sympathize with Islamist jihad through Muslim Brotherhood affiliations.

 

Intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Canada are on the alert with the certain knowledge that retaliatory incidents could occur anywhere on their soil. It is anticipated that small-scale attacks by 'lone wolves' at the very least will occur as a result of the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran, prompted by the newly-issued fatwa. According to Mr. Gursky, small-scale targeted attacks with the use of guns, not bombs will be the likeliest to occur; even that criminal gangs could be contracted with by IRGC agents to carry them out.

 

The US launches a missile as part of Operation Epic Fury (Image: Getty)

 

This, without entirely ruling out a larger-scale event where Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah in particular with their well-established presence in both countries, might act in a concert of atrocities. As it is, Iran under attack, has lashed out in surprising ways, to launch missiles and drones throughout the Middle East, at Arab-Sunni states that are hostile to Tehran and Shiite-supporting states friendly to Iran, with equal abandon, sending countless missiles in an effort to fully involve the entire region. Lashing out in all directions could conceivably include much further abroad.

 

While Gurski points to Iran's transnational repression that targets diaspora communities such as Iranian-Canadians who deplore the regime, as being the likeliest targets in punishment of their hostility and agitation, M. Berman points out that retribution by Iran would make Jews vulnerable to violent attacks within both countries. Jewish schools, synagogues and community centres have been the focus of violent attacks in the past two years following the atrocities in southern Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023. 

 

Counter-terrorism, both experts agreed, was the primary focus throughouy the 2000s, when the focus was in preventing jihadis -- al-Qaeda at the time primarily -- from executing attacks, followed by the Islamic State. Phil Gurski recalled that counter-terrorism at that time was "running to stay in place on jihadis", until former prime minister Justin Trudeau made the decision that the far right represented a larger, more imminently dangerous threat, and diverted resources to that presumed threat, from terrorism.

 

On the part of the United States, the diversion of attention to terrorism was overtaken by a perception of the need to focus on competition between the great political and economic powers that challenged American primacy. In the face of which the Middle East and Africa became afterthoughts of less concern, even while both regions ramped up their terrorist-jihad strides, leaving North American intelligence unprepared for the increased scale of their belligerent enterprises. "We're seeing that this problem set hasn't gone away", commented Mr. Berman wryly.