Posted on 06/04/2006 9:10:54 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
A Canadian counterterrorism investigation that led to the arrests of 17 people accused of plotting bombings in Ontario is linked to probes in a half-dozen countries.
Well before police tactical teams began their sweeps around Toronto on Friday, at least 18 related arrests had already taken place in Canada, the United States, Britain, Bosnia, Denmark, Sweden and Bangladesh.
The six-month RCMP investigation, called Project OSage, is one of several overlapping probes that include an FBI case called Operation Northern Exposure and a British probe known as Operation Mazhar.
At a news conference yesterday, the RCMP announced terrorism charges had been laid against a dozen Toronto-area men and five teens under the age of 18. The group "took steps to acquire components necessary to create explosive devices" including three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, police said.
Ammonium nitrate fertilizer is commonly used in terrorist bombs, police said.
By comparison, the truck bomb used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, contained a single tonne of ammonium nitrate.
"It was their intent to use it for a terrorist attack," said RCMP assistant commissioner Mike McDonell.
"This group posed a real threat. It had the capacity and intent to carry out these attacks."
Police declined to identify the intended targets because the investigation is continuing, but said they were all in southern Ontario and did not include the Toronto transit system, as some news media had reported.
As senior RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials spoke to reporters, some of the evidence seized during police raids was displayed on a table guarded by police officers.
The materials included a bag of ammonium nitrate, a pistol and ammunition clip, computer hard drive, and what appeared to be a cellphone-activated electronic detonator hidden inside a small black fishing tackle box.
The accused made brief court appearances in Brampton, north of Toronto, yesterday.
They face charges of participating in the acts of a terrorist group, including training and recruitment; firearms and explosives offences for the purposes of terrorism and providing property for terrorist purposes.
The accused men are mostly in their teens and 20s. They include men of Somali, Egyptian, Jamaican and Trinidadian origin. All are residents of Canada and "for the most part" are Canadian citizens, police said.
Charged are: Fahim Ahmad, 21, Zakaria Amara, 20, Asad Ansari, 21, Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, Mohammed Dirie, 22, Yasim Abdi Mohamed, 24, Jahmaal James, 23, Amin Mohamed Durrani, 19, Steven Vikash Chand, 25, and Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21. A 12th man and five youths can't be named.
"For various reasons, they appear to have become adherents to a violent ideology inspired by Al-Qa'ida," said Luc Portelance, the CSIS assistant director of operations.
"Any movement that has the ability to turn people against their fellow citizens is obviously something that CSIS is very concerned about."
He called the investigation the largest since the Anti-terrorism Act was passed in December 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
"It is important to know that this operation in no way reflects negatively on any specific community, or ethno-cultural group in Canada," he added.
CSIS and RCMP officials invited about a dozen members of Toronto's Muslim community to a meeting yesterday morning to discuss potential fallout.
"The police said they are cognizant of the fact that there could be a backlash and that they've taken all precautions to ensure that nothing like this happens," said Canadian Muslim Congress spokesperson Tarek Fatah. "They are very conscious of the fact that this is a small group of criminals and they don't reflect the vast Muslim community in Toronto."
The Toronto busts are linked to arrests that began last August at a Canadian border post near Niagara Falls and continued in October in Sarajevo, London and Scandinavia, and this year in New York and Georgia.
The FBI confirmed yesterday the arrests were related to the recent indictments in the United States of Ehsanul Sadequee and Syed Ahmed, who are accused of meeting with extremists in Toronto last March to discuss terrorist training and plots.
National Post
It is just a matter of time until we get hit again. I am surprised it hasn't happened yet.
But, they were caught...without profiling.
They were caught by solid investigations and intelligence.....better than mass profiling.
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The Toronto Star reports this morning that the RCMP itself sold the Toronto terror cell the three tons of ammonium nitrate it planned to use for devastating attacks on Canada. The Mounties moved to capture all of the suspects as soon as the deal for the fertilizer concluded:
**********************AN EXCERPT *********************************
Predictably, the attorneys continue to lament the focus on Muslims while the Canadian government tries to pretend it doesn't exist. Both gain themselves little credibility in either effort. Luc Portelance of the CSIS, whom one presumes knows better, tapdanced around motivation in statements yesterday:
Yesterday, officials offered few details about the suspects or how they met, saying only they come from a "variety of backgrounds" and represented a broad strata, including students, the employed and unemployed."It is important to know that this operation in no way reflects negatively on any specific community or ethnocultural group in Canada," said Portelance. "Terrorism is a dangerous ideology, and a global phenomenon. ... Canada is not immune from this ideology."
When asked why Canadians would want to attack targets in Canada, Portelance said: "Clearly, they're motivated by some of the things we see around the world," he said.
"They're against the Western influences in Islamic countries and have an adherence to violence to reach a political objective. But as far as the specific motivators, I think they probably change from individual to individual."
Yes, he offered more of the "broad strata" argument. However, where Portelance sees a clear connection to world events, the rest of us mere mortals only need to scan the list of suspects to understand that all of these Canadians are Muslims. In most investigations, at least pre-political correctness, that kind of connection would be determinative. When three mouthbreathing morons dragged James Byrd to his death in Texas, their racism made clear what their motivation was, even though there are plenty of racists who would never have gone that far with their hateful ideology. No one much doubted the motive, and law enforcement didn't pretend Byrd's grotesque murder had some inspiration from "world events". When Eric Rudolph blew up abortion clinics and eventually was discovered to have detonated the Atlanta Olympic bomb, no one thought that he found motivation from "world events". Why do Western governments find it so difficult to abandon this transparent folly?
Sometimes, as Sigmund Freud once famously remarked, a cigar is just a cigar.
Don't think our Canadian friends are buying it, however.
************************AN EXCERPT *********************************
As more information comes to light about the terror cell in Toronto smashed by Canadian authorities, the picture emerging is that of a global jihadist network that apparently does not require professionalism or guile to join. As this episode shows, any group of Muslims filled with enough hate for motivation can work through the Internet and a system of mosques to find like-minded terrorist wannabes and the resources to make their dreams come true:
See link at #28 also.....CQ is on top of this.
As noted above, the 6/06/06 date is probably the target date so it's a bit early to say what you said, my friend. June sixth may not be a good day to be in a major city or travelling a major highway I'm guessing. We shall see ...
But, but, but....THEY"RE CANADIAN CITIZENS!
The Washington Post never indicated that they were muslims...such a surprise, huh?
From London to Toronto: Dismantling Cells, dodging their ideology
Good Ping!!!
I keep getting the feeling that the Georgia arrests here and the recent Canadian arrests might have been disclosed to our Senators in the closed door session with General Hayden before he was approved to be the new CIA director.
If so, it would have been really hard to vote against the General unless one was a senator who hated America and want the Islamofascist to win the WOT.
I totally agree with you.
Thankfully, I'm flying on the 8th and not the 6th.
Would be nice to know if this incident was shared.....
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