Canada ping!
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Posted on 06/08/2006 7:51:50 AM PDT by Clive
OTTAWA (CP) - An alleged plot to take MPs hostage on Parliament Hill was abandoned at an early stage because the people involved - who hail from southern Ontario - knew little about Ottawa, The Canadian Press has learned.
The accused conspirators are being interrogated about any possible plans to attack targets in the United States or links to sympathizers south of the border, sources also indicate. The public was shocked to hear a group arrested on terrorism-related charges had supposedly planned to storm Parliament, seize politicians and behead the prime minister.
An insider who has had knowledge of the investigation for several months said the idea was dropped some time ago because the people involved in the conspiracy were too unfamiliar with the nation's capital.
The scope of the group's apparent intentions suggests sophistication and detailed planning, but in reality their scheme appeared to be haphazard.
One source described them as a rag-tag assembly of "losers." But he went on to note that the men accused of the London bombings last July were similarly dismissed, yet still managed to inflict considerable carnage.
Fifteen of those charged in the Canadian police sweep are from the Greater Toronto Area, while two others are currently jailed in Kingston, Ont.
Instead of taking on the challenge of breaching Hill security and raiding the House of Commons, the group is alleged to have turned its focus to attacking targets exclusively located in southern Ontario.
The RCMP contend the suspects sought three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer - a potential bomb-making agent - in order to fashion powerful explosives.
Though there has been speculation about a wide selection of possible targets, the actual number is believed to be just a handful.
"I was told three," said another insider who has been briefed on the probe.
Gary Batasar, lawyer for 25-year-old restaurant worker Steven Chand, said the group is accused of hatching plans to take MPs hostage and blow up the CBC's Toronto headquarters.
Also, several published reports cite court documents as saying that at least one of the accused, Amin Mohamed Durrani, had enrolled for flying lessons at a Toronto-area college but did not attend any of the classes.
Another media report, citing a Crown synopsis of the case, says the suspects are alleged to have finally settled on an unspecified Canadian Forces base, the downtown Toronto office of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Toronto Stock Exchange.
But details have been scarce.
"We don't discuss our security," said Steve Kee, a spokesman for the Stock Exchange. "I don't care if you think it's very categorical, that's our stance."
One insider said the Americans had been quite worried members of the Canadian group had chosen targets in the United States and might try to slip across the border.
U.S. officials expressed relief and appreciation following the police sweep late last Friday.
"In the administration, people recognize the value of what has been done," said one federal official.
Another source said information provided by the United States played a part in the Canadian arrests.
An FBI affidavit alleges Americans Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, both from the Atlanta area, travelled to Toronto in March 2005, meeting with others of interest to U.S. authorities.
The men supposedly discussed "strategic locations in the United States suitable for a terrorist strike, to include oil refineries and military bases."
FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko recently confirmed U.S. links with the Ontario police sweep, noting an "indication that some of the Canadian subjects may have had limited contact with the two people recently arrested from Georgia."
Canadian authorities will be probing the accused for any U.S. ties they may have beyond the two Atlanta men.
Assistant RCMP Commissioner Mike McDonell underscored the search for other international contacts the accused might have.
"We plan to share our investigative leads with our allies, and see where it goes from there," McDonell said in an interview.
The Canadian probe is said to have links to investigations in half a dozen countries. Still, any international dimensions of the Ontario events remain unclear.
McDonell said he had never heard of Operation Mazhar, an apparent British probe said to overlap with the Canadian investigation.
Another potential thread emerged Wednesday with the arrest in England of a 21-year-old man and a 16-year-old youth said by the BBC to be connected to the terrorist plot in Canada.
Gil Hebert, mayor of the northern Ontario town of Matheson, played down a media report the accused Canadian terrorists had set off a test explosion in his small community.
"Here everybody knows everybody, and they would stand out like sore thumbs. So it's completely bogus," Hebert said.
"God, even if there's a grass fire everybody knows about it before the grass fire's out. So it would surprise me very much that there'd be explosions out in the countryside that would go unreported."
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Canada ping!
Please FReepmail me to get on or off this ping list.
Idiots or not, they were still out to kill many innocent people.
seems this is a MSM spin of "its ok, they were only going to attack americans..."
But we're a Conservative government now.
With the amount of fertilizer they were collecting they did not have to do much planning to cause an awful lot of damage.
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