Terrorist Attack in Canada Shows Limits of a Persistent Threat

To avoid the difficulty of transporting personnel and weapons, terrorist groups have made a practice of seeking out potential militants already living in Western countries and recruiting them to conduct attacks. On Oct. 20, Canada became the latest Western country to be targeted by this kind of attack when a grassroots jihadist ran over two Canadian soldiers in Saint-Jean-sur-Richeliu with his car. This is exactly the type of attack we expect to see from the global jihadist movement in the West. Such attacks are a sign of weakness rather than of strength and highlight the constraints jihadist groups face as they try to project their terrorist capability in the post-9/11 world.