News from the Middle East keeps getting worse, especially in the way it impacts on distant and peaceful nations like Canada.

Reports suggest 180 Canadians have gone to wage jihad by joining ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

ISIS has threatened more attacks on Western soil, and ISIS-inspired lone wolves remain a concern for our public safety agencies.

Headlines in Canadian newspapers are naturally focusing on Monday’s attack on soldiers at a Canadian military recruiting centre in Toronto.

So far, there are no known links between the accused and ISIS.

Thankfully, the soldiers’ injuries were moderate -- because military personnel were able to subdue the attacker -- but it is still a symptom of a grave issue facing our country; how to handle the mindset that inspires such violence.

The first step must be calling it what it is, yet discourse on issues related to the possibility of Islamist terrorism are being watered down.

Ayanle Hassan Ali, 27, has been charged with nine offences, including three for attempted murder, in the attack on the military recruitment office.

From the descriptions provided by Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders about how the incident unfolded, the accused went on a stabbing spree shouting the words: “Allah told me to come here and kill people!”

There have been published reports he may be mentally disturbed.

The courts will determine if Ali is guilty and whether his mental state at the time was a relevant issue.

But, speaking in general terms, mental illness and terrorism are not mutually exclusive.

The broader issue is that if someone is diagnosed as mentally ill, this does not mean we should automatically dismiss the role of Islamism as a possible motivator of criminal behaviour.

Predictably, Saunders has already warned the media and public to refrain from any “Islamophobia nonsense”.

Such a warning seems to be an attempt to upstage any discussion that dares to suggest Islamism may have played a role in what happened in Toronto Monday.

Indeed, there seems to be a growing determination to call Islamism anything but what it is.

For example, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said his government would join France and Australia in using the Arabic term “Daesh” instead of “Islamic State”.

That tends to remove any suggestion of an Islamist agenda at work, at least for Westerners.

Actually, “Daesh” is an Arabic acronym that includes a reference to Islam, so the label changes nothing, either for ISIS terrorists, or other Arabic speakers.

In Canada, we have seen a move by the National Council of Canadian Muslims to encourage media to use the term “Daesh” as a substitute for Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL.

Praising the Toronto Star, Amira Elghawaby, NCCM’s communications director, said the paper “has shown tremendous leadership in being the first major Canadian media organization to take such a definitive stand about how it refers to the terrorist group.”

But we are surely making a huge mistake in discussing critical terrorism issues when our language about terror is based on a determined refusal to acknowledge that radical Islam often plays a role in it and in inspiring terrorist attacks.

Terrorism stems from a complex blend of religious, cultural, psychological, social and political factors.

We may never fully understand what motivates its adherents, but clearly many Islamist terrorists are motivated by religious extremism.

We should not opt for language which denies the role of militant Islamism in many terrorist attacks.