Article content

Terrorist attacks have become fast-moving and harder to anticipate, underscoring the need to prevent Canadians from falling into violent extremism in the first place, the RCMP’s top counter-terrorism officer said Tuesday.

While terrorist plots used to evolve over months of recruiting and planning, giving police opportunities to detect them and make arrests, recent attacks have unfolded quickly and made use of vehicles, knives and guns as weapons.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Intervention before people become radicalized key to fighting terror: top RCMP counter-terrorism officer Back to video

“If you’re looking at trying to prevent somebody from jumping in their car and running somebody over, well there’s not much you can do there,” said Assistant Commissioner James Malizia, who oversees national security criminal investigations.

The key is to step in before someone becomes that deeply radicalized: “There may be an opportunity to actually intervene to try and disengage that individual from heading down the path of violence,” Malizia said in an interview.