Canada may scale up anti-terror fight after threat

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says authorities looking at ways to monitor and act against potential attackers

OTTAWA — Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Monday his government is looking to scale up its fight against terrorism after the Islamic State group threatened lone-wolf attacks on Canadians.

“We have, as you know, strengthened laws in this country to deal with these kinds of threats,” Harper said.

“We are currently in the process of examining these laws and examining other means we may have to monitor and to take action against both organizations and individuals who may undertake activities that are potentially threatening to Canadians.”

In an audio recording the Islamic State group has called for Muslims to kill citizens of countries fighting IS, including Canada.

Earlier this month Canada deployed 69 special forces soldiers to Iraq to advise security forces fighting Islamist militants in the northern part of the country.

The troop deployment followed a US call for a broad international coalition “to degrade, and ultimately to destroy the threat posed by ISIL,” an alternate acronym for the group.

The Islamic State group has taken control of a swath of Syria and northern Iraq and declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate, amid mass executions and attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.

Harper also said that Canada’s “military assistance to people on the ground resisting the growth of ISIL (in Iraq)… is important.”