Posted on 06/05/2006 3:49:15 PM PDT by rocksblues
MISSISSAUGA, Ontario
Several members of a suspected terrorist ring prayed daily at a storefront mosque in a middle-class city west of Toronto but never spoke of hurting others, one of their prayer leaders said.
"I will say that they were steadfast, religious people. There's no doubt about it. But here we always preach peace and moderation," Qamrul Khanson, an imam at the one-room Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education, said Sunday.
The 40-50 Muslim families who worship at the mosque were astonished, he said, to learn that police had arrested 12 adults, ages 19 to 43, and five suspects younger than 18 on Friday and Saturday, charging them with plotting an attack in southern Ontario. Two Americans who met with the suspects also are in custody.
The group had acquired three tons of ammonium nitrate _ three times the amount used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, said assistant Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner Mike McDonell. The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killed 168 people and injured more than 800.
The fertilizer can be mixed with fuel oil or other ingredients to make a bomb.
Officials said the operation involved some 400 intelligence and law- enforcement officers and was the largest counterterrorism operation in Canada since the nation's Anti-Terrorism Act was adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks. The Toronto Star reported that the investigation began in 2004 with the monitoring of Internet chat rooms.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Canadian operation was "obviously a great success for the Canadians. They're to be congratulated for it."
The 17 suspects represent a spectrum of Canadian society, from the unemployed to a school bus driver to the college-educated. The 12 adults live in Toronto, Mississauga and Kingston, Ontario.
Police said the suspects, all citizens or residents of Canada, had trained together.
"For various reasons, they appeared to have become adherents of a violent ideology inspired by al-Qaida," Luc Portelance, the assistant director of operations with CSIS _ Canada's spy agency, said Saturday.
The oldest suspect, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, often led prayers at the storefront mosque.
Khanson said Jamal's Friday night prayers were "more aggressive" than those of other prayer leaders, but there was no talk of hostility or terrorism.
The modest mosque is sandwiched between The Cafe Khan, which offers Pakistani kabobs, and a convenience store in Mississauga, a city of 700,000 people with many immigrants. Mohammed Jan works at the cafe and said several suspects often came in for snacks after prayers.
"It's pretty shocking. They used to come every day and they just seemed normal," Jan said. "I definitely didn't find their behavior suspicious."
Neighbors said Jamal's wife drove a school bus, and he was always home and did not seem to work regularly. The couple has three small children, neighbors said.
Jerry Tavares of Brazil lives two doors down from Jamal's home. He said Jamal was unfriendly and rarely interacted with the neighbors.
"I wasn't surprised," the construction worker said, adding that he was afraid and intends to move out of the neighborhood with his wife and toddler. "You never know who lives next door."
A woman in a burqa peeked out from behind a curtain but would not answer the door at Jamal's home in a brick townhouse rental compound.
Another neighbor, Peter Smith, said a half-dozen SWAT team officers converged on the home Friday evening and began screaming at the family to get outside and get down on the ground. Even the young children were handcuffed, Smith said.
"Other kids were yelling, 'Terrorists! Terrorists!' and they were asking their mom, 'Mom, are we terrorists?'" he said.
Nada Farooq, the wife of 20-year-old suspect Zakaria Amara, described how police crashed into the family's home as the couple played with their 8-month-old baby. Family members were moved to the garage and her husband was taken away, she said.
"They're not guilty," she told CTV News. "They're still innocent until proven guilty and yet they're taking measures as though they're monsters."
FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said in Washington there may have been a connection between the Canadian suspects and a Georgia Tech student and another American who had traveled to Canada to meet with Islamic extremists to discuss locations for a terrorist strike.
Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, U.S. citizens who grew up in the Atlanta area, were arrested in March.
The 17 suspects are scheduled to appear again in court Tuesday.
Khanson said at least three suspects regularly prayed at the Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education.
"I have faith that they have done a thorough investigation," Khanson said of authorities. "But just the possession of ammonium nitrate doesn't prove that they have done anything wrong.
"We value our Canadian culture and we would never allow any links with the so-called Taliban or al-Qaida."
A government official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that more warrants were being drawn up and further arrests were likely. But Cpl. Michele Paradis, a spokeswoman for the Mounties, said no more arrests were expected in coming days.
"Once we once analyze and sort through everything that was seized as a result there may be (more arrests)," she said. "At this point we are confident that we have the majority of people."
Rocco Galati, a lawyer for two of the men from Mississauga, said: "Both of their families are very well-established professionals, well- established families, no criminal pasts whatsoever. That's why we're anxious to see the particulars of the allegations against them."
He described Ahmad Ghany, 21, as a Canada-born health sciences graduate of McMaster University whose father, a physician, emigrated from Trinidad and Tobago in 1955.
His other client, Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30, is an unmarried computer programmer who emigrated from Egypt at age 10 with his father, he said.
Two suspects, Mohammed Dirie, 22, and Yasim Abdi Mohamed, 24, already are in an Ontario prison serving two-year terms for weapons possession.
Another imam, Aly Hindy, said he knew nine of the suspects and complained that CSIS has unfairly targeted his mosque and congregants for years.
"They have been harassed by CSIS agents and this is what they come up with?" Hindy said. "I'm almost sure that most of these people will be freed."
Muslim leaders were concerned that the highly publicized arrests would cause a backlash against their community. A mosque in northwest Toronto was vandalized overnight, with 25 windows and three doors smashed, police said.
Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, told the AP that he and other Muslim leaders were getting threatening e-mails.
"We hope Canadians will be more rational and consider the facts," Elmasry said.
Of course if your lawyers can get their posts to an on line chat group thrown out you might have a point.
There are almost no imams anywhere in the world who have a bad thing to say about terrorists. That's the problem.
Hope the LE checked all the buses very, very closely.
A follower is allowed to lie to those who do not practice the faith. So our principle of law does not affect them.
Correct.
re: "But just the possession of ammonium nitrate doesn't prove that they have done anything wrong."
So, are we to believe that all the alleged terrorists are simply farmers (who happen to live in a big city) in need of massive amounts of fertilizer?
How big is their farm?
yitbos
Mis understood boys going into farming..
al-taqiya...
And they always play the victim and play the race card. OH OH!
Islam: The Religion of Mendacity
yet they're taking measures as though they're monsters
Comment:
Sweetheart you ignorant nitwit have inadvertently hit the nail on the head.
These people are monsters of the most cowardly kind.
Religion Of Piece yep just ask Adolph Hitler.
Canada needed a wake up call but I doubt this will awaken many to the take over that is taking place in big steps.
Narrow-minded...fanatical...
"We hope Canadians will be more rational and consider the facts," Elmasry said."
Rational =Dhimmitude hey Mr El Masri?
A threat? Like what a Halal boycott? Maybe we take a page from your Al Quaeda buddies in Iraq and separate the shiites from the sunnis kids and have the shiites shot? How do you like them apples?
Maybe it is fellow muslims threatening your priviledged arse. Maybe other muslims see the threat to their way of life as well.
OK smart ass let's consider some of these facts:
Muslims living in Canada intent on killing innocent Canadians because we do not adhere to your fascist f'en idiology. How bout picking a military target instead? Why don't they Jihadi their a$$ back to A10 Thunderbolt Alley in Afghanistan? Our boys will more than gladly send 'Joe Jihadi to the resurrection.
If you do not have an answer your part of the problem so do like a good Saudi sponsored muslim. STFU!!!
Why are all the terrorists always said to be wonderful people???
For Islam to continue, it needs to renounce Jihad.
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