Canadian admits to plotting attacks

National Post (Canada) ^ | January 10, 2003 | Stewart Bell

[JohnathanRGalt]

Canadian admits to plotting attacks

Report details role of St. Catharines man
 
Stewart Bell, National Post.   Friday, January 10, 2003

A Canadian man has confessed he was sent to Southeast Asia by al-Qaeda to organize a terrorist cell that plotted a massive assault that involved setting off simultaneous truck bombs at six Western buildings in Singapore.

A 50-page report released yesterday by the government of Singapore provides the first official details of the terrorist activities of Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, a 20-year-old student from St. Catharines.

It said Mr. Jabarah had admitted he was dispatched by al-Qaeda after Sept. 11 to help local Islamic militants plot bombings at Western embassies and commercial sites. He travelled throughout the region using the alias Sammy, meeting secretly with high-level members of al-Qaeda's local affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah, it said.

"So far, Maohammed Mansour [Jabarah] has revealed that he was the liaison person between al-Qaeda and the Southeast Asian operatives," the report said.

The report also said he has admitted he discussed terrorist attacks with Riduan bin Isamuddin, alias Hambali, the man believed to have staged the Oct. 12 bombing of a nightclub on the Indonesia island of Bali that left almost 200 dead, including two Canadians.

News that yet another Canadian has taken part in a terror campaign comes as Liberal politicians such as Denis Coderre, the Immigration Minister, are complaining that Canada is being unfairly branded a terrorist haven.

David Harris, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent, said Mr. Jabarah's confession should set the government straight. "Let's pray for an end to Mr. Coderre's embarrassing pose as a wounded victim of American security 'paranoia.' " he said. "It's an ingenue role that doesn't wash."

A graduate of a Catholic high school in St. Catharines, the Kuwaiti-born Mr. Jabarah went to Pakistan following his graduation and was dispatched by al-Qaeda to Malaysia in September, 2001.

In Kuala Lumpur, he approached Jemaah Islamiyah members "with a plan to use truck bombs to attack targets in Singapore." Mr. Jabarah arrived in Singapore in October to brief local terrorist leaders about his plan.

At a meeting in one of the operatives' cars, he asked the others "for their suggestions on other possible targets. They identified the Australian and British high commissions as targets because of their proximity to the U.S. embassy. They also explored 'soft' targets and identified several commercial buildings in the city housing American companies."

Mr. Jabarah scouted the targets. He also collected videotapes of the sites. One videotape was labelled "Visiting Singapore Sightseeing" in order to disguise its purpose.

Because TNT was difficult to obtain in the region, the cell decided to use ammonium nitrate instead. By the time the plans were in place, the group had accumulated 17 tonnes of the explosive.

The operation was to use six trucks. Each would carry three tonnes of ammonium nitrate (by comparison, the truck bomb used in Oklahoma City contained two to three tonnes of the explosive).

"Sammy would bring his people down to Singapore to rig the bombs at the secured warehouse," the report said. "The trucks would then be driven and parked at designated points near the targets.

"The local cell members would then leave the country as unknown suicide bombers arrived. These suicide bombers [believed to be Arabs] would be brought down to Singapore just a day before the planned attack."

The attacks were to take place between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. the following morning. The bombings never occurred because authorities found out about the plot and arrested several key members.

Mr. Jabarah was arrested in March in Oman. Authorities handed him to Canadian intelligence agents, who brought him back to Canada. Knowing he would likely be charged by the United States, he decided to co-operate with U.S. investigators. He went voluntarily to the United States and is being held at an army base in New York.

Since Mr. Jabarah's arrest, Canadian Muslim and Arab lobby groups have portrayed him as an innocent victim of the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism crackdown and demanded that Ottawa launch an investigation into his case.

Mansour Jabarah, his father, called the allegations lies. "No, this is false, 100%. They are lying, everywhere they are lying," he told the National Post in an interview from Kuwait City. He said his son knew nothing about terrorist plots.

But the Singapore government report shows that Mr. Jabarah has himself admitted to being intimately involved in planning acts of terrorism designed to kill Western civilians, and that he did so even after the atrocities of Sept. 11.

Canadian officials suspect Mr. Jabarah has entered into a plea bargain with the U.S. Justice Department in exchange for his cooperation, but his lawyer declined to comment and his father said he had no knowledge of such a deal.

[Anti-Bubba182]

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[Mitchell]

Ping.

[JohnathanRGalt]

Of course, the Muslim and liberal groups are up in arms about this whole affair -- here's a sample of what they are saying:

---

How Canada failed to protect a Muslim citizen

SOMETIME IN May, according to his father, a St. Catharines man - a Canadian citizen - was urged by Canada's secret service to take a brief trip across the border to help American officials investigate an alleged terrorist plot.

The man, a 20-year-old student, agreed - and promptly disappeared into the black hole of the post-Sept. 11 U.S. justice system.

Three months later, the St. Catharines man is still being held, against his will his father says.

He has not been charged with any crime. U.S. authorities refuse to reveal the grounds on which he is being held. Indeed, they refuse to say anything. Until the media reported Jabarah is being held at a Brooklyn army base, even Canada's foreign affairs department couldn't find out where he was.

If this Canadian citizen were named Jones or Bouchard or Giancola, one suspects there would now be a public outcry.

But Mohamed Mansour Jabarah is not a Jones or a Bouchard. He is a Kuwaiti-born Muslim. And that, apparently, seems to justify his treatment at the hands of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

(... excerpted, read full article here ...)

________________________

I suspect something or someone in "the black hole of the post-Sept. 11 U.S. justice system" was able to get him to confess and cooperate. Maybe the system is working after all?

[albertabound]

The more they piss and moan the more I like it, let this punk rot in Gitmo.