FILE PHOTO - Iraqi security forces gather outside the Kurdish-held city of Altun Kupri on the outskirts of Irbil, Iraq, on Oct. 19, 2017. A leading researcher on terrorist travellers says returnees to Canada can be rehabilitated because those who do come back to their home countries are often disillusioned with the fight and are ready for reintegration.
Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Khalid Mohammed
November 27, 2017 - 7:15 AM
OTTAWA - A leading researcher on terrorist travellers says returnees to Canada can be rehabilitated, as those who come back to their home countries are often disillusioned or traumatized.
Lorne Dawson, sociology professor at the University of Waterloo, says others feel they have done their duty to defend Muslim lands and want to lead a more normal life.
Dawson, project director for the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society, says rehabilitation requires careful effort, but Canada has been slow in building this capacity.
Canada's spy agency has said it is aware of 180 individuals with a nexus to Canada who are suspected of terrorist activity abroad.
Half of these individuals are believed to have travelled to Syria or Iraq.
Dawson says his researchers know of about a dozen jihadist returnees to Canada from the Syrian-Iraqi conflict.
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News from © The Canadian Press, 2017