THE threat of the so-called ‘lone wolves’ is not something to dismiss as in ‘here we go again!’ as Monday and Wednesday’s incidents in Canada so graphically prove.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director Michel Coulombe told a House of Commons committee that they are aware of some 130 people who have left the country to join terrorists abroad and 80 more who have returned.

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson said that the RCMP are investigating 63 national security cases linked to terrorism and involving 90 suspects.

That is a FRIGHTENING situation, indeed!

From news reports and interviews over the past few days, it emerges that the authorities have to tread gingerly in dealing with these characters because of our laws.

Yes, I agree that neither the police nor the intelligence outfits should violate anyone’s rights, but in a situation where the authorities know that a Canadian has been radicalized and it’s on record, and he or she is spotted with a weapon, police should have the right to shoot and kill him or her right away.

Because these scumbags do NOT have the right to go around killing other people – whether they are soldiers or civilians.

Last Monday, Martin Couture-Rouleau reportedly waited in a car for some two hours in a parking lot before he struck two members of the military in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. One of the victims, Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, later died.

Couture-Rouleau then led the police on a high speed chase and ended up being shot and killed.

The RCMP told the media that police had become concerned in June about his radicalization and arrested him last summer as he was about to leave the country. But he was released because they didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. As they put it: “We could not arrest someone for having radical thoughts. It’s not a crime in Canada.” 

Just last year, Canadian-born John Stuart Nuttall, then 38, and Amanda Korody, then 29, of Surrey were accused of plotting a Boston Marathon type of terrorist attack – explosive devices in pressure cookers – at the B.C. Legislature in Victoria on Canada Day.

A few years ago, the FBI noted on its website: “Homegrown Islamist extremists are so socially and demographically diverse that no universally accepted profile can be compiled using socio-demographic characteristics.”

Back in July 2010, FBI Director Robert Mueller in his statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., noted: “Homegrown and “lone wolf” extremists also pose a serious threat along with traditional international terror groups. We saw attacks on the military and its facilities in the United States with the Fort Hood killings in November [2009] and the Arkansas recruitment station shootings just over a year ago [2009]. There were also attacks on commercial and government targets, with the disruption of the attempted bombings of an office tower in Dallas, Texas and a federal building in Springfield, Illinois. U.S.-born extremists also plotted to commit terrorist acts overseas, as was the case with the armed Boyd conspiracy in North Carolina, and David Headley’s involvement in the Mumbai attacks.”

Counter-terrorism agencies face the monumental challenge of unearthing lone wolf terror plots – Islamic or rightwing Christian or whatever.

U.S. President Barack Obama highlighted that in an interview with CNN back then when he said: “When you’ve got one person who is deranged or driven by a hateful ideology, they can do a lot of damage, and it’s a lot harder to trace those lone wolf operators.”

Obama pointed out the example of Anders Behring Breivik – who admitted to the July 22, 2011 bomb blast at government headquarters and to the shooting massacre at a Labor Party youth camp in Norway in which 77 people were killed.

A counter-terrorism official told CNN in 2011 that lone wolves had been responsible for every deadly terrorist attack in the West since June 2009.

Al Qaeda’s media production wing released a video in 2011 titled “You are Only Responsible for Yourself” that encouraged its followers to indulge in individual acts of terrorism.

Unfortunately, would-be terrorists have been able to make viable explosive devices from information available on the Internet.