Terrorist Cell Broken Up In Canada: RoP Has No Comment
Yes, the religion of peace was eerily (and predictably) silent about a series of raids nabbing 12 suspects connected to possible terrorist attacks to be launched around Toronto. (HT: Captain Ed)
Police across the Greater Toronto Area launched counterterrorism raids Friday, arresting at least eight people in a roundup expected to continue overnight and beyond.
Media reports Saturday alleged that the suspects engaged in terror training camps north of Toronto. It was further alleged that a group were plotting to attack targets in Toronto including the headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
RCMP and CSIS officials were expected to address theses allegations at a press conference to be held Saturday morning at 10 .a.m.
“We anticipate more arrests, but not necessarily tonight,” an RCMP source said of the arrests, in what appeared to be the most concerted such sweep in Canada since the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service aided the RCMP and officers from Toronto, Peel and Durham in detaining the suspects, described by an undercover officer involved in the operation as “terrorists, the ones who hate the West.”
The ethnicity of the group was not clear. A well- placed police source said they are Muslims, but not Arabs, and unconnected to anti-terrorism raids that occurred simultaneously in Britain yesterday.
Quoting anonymous sources, CBC said the targets of the raid are suspected of connections with al-Qaeda. A Canadian Press report said the arrests stemmed from a plot involving explosives.
While the intended target is unclear, the plan was to detonate an explosive device in Ontario, a source who asked not to be named told Canadian Press. “That's the tool of choice for anybody who wants to cause damage.”
The suspects, whom one report said numbered 10, were being held at a Durham Regional Police station in Pickering, which late Friday night resembled a fortress under siege.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office declined to comment last night, saying the government does not want to interfere in police operations.
The Integrated National Enforcement Team, comprising the RCMP and other police, CSIS and federal agencies such as the Canada Border Services Agency, will hold a press conference this morning to outline charges and further details.
A source in Pickering said that during the day, heavily armed tactical officers were seen near a local mosque that serves about 1,000 families in the area. But a mosque trustee said he did not know of any police raids in the vicinity. He was at the mosque for 3 p.m. prayers and nothing seemed amiss, he said.
And thanks to the diligence of the captain, we also have a list of names:
1. Fahim Ahmad, 21, of Robinstone Drive, Toronto, Ontario;
2. Zakaria Amara, 20, of Periwinkle Crescent, Mississauga, Ontario;
3. Asad Ansari, 21, of Rosehurst Drive, Mississauga, Ontario;
4. Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30, of Lowville Heights, Mississauga, Ontario;
5. Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, of Montevideo Road, Mississauga, Ontario;
6. Mohammed Dirie, 22, Kingston, Ontario;
7. Yasim Abdi Mohamed, 24, Kingston, Ontario;
8. Jahmaal James, 23, of Trudelle Street, Toronto, Ontario;
9. Amin Mohamed Durrani, 19, of Stonehill Court, Toronto, Ontario;
10. Steven Vikash Chand alias Abdul Shakur, 25, of Treverton Drive, Toronto, Ontario;
11. Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21, of Robin Drive, Mississauga, Ontario;
12. Saad Khalid, 19, of Eclipse Avenue, Mississauga, Ontario.
In addition to these twelve people, Stephen Taylor reports this from the RCMP:
This group took steps to acquire three tonnes of ammonium nitrate and other components necessary to create explosive devices," said Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell. "To put this in context, the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people took one tonne of ammonium nitrate."
These were "homegrown" terrorists in Canada, inspired by the militant Islamicists fighting the forces of freedom and democracy around the globe; the coalition of the willing in the global war on terror. And how, pray tell, did the Mounties track these people down? It seems they are taking cues from the United States, as the Toronto Star reports:
Last night's dramatic police raid and arrest of as many as a dozen men — with more to come — marks the culmination of Canada's largest ever terrorism investigation into an alleged homegrown cell.
The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad.
Their words were sometimes encrypted, the Internet sites where they communicated allegedly restricted by passwords, but Canadian spies back in 2004 were reading them. And as the youths' words turned into actions, they began watching them.
According to sources close to the investigation, the suspects are teenagers and men in their 20s who had a relatively typical Canadian upbringing, but — allegedly spurred on by images of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan and angered by what they saw as the mistreatment of Muslims at home — became increasingly violent.
Police say they acquired weapons, picked targets and made detailed plans.
They travelled north to a "training camp" and made propaganda videos imitating jihadists who had battled in Afghanistan. At night, they washed up at a Tim Hortons nearby.
One was a math and chemistry whiz from Scarborough who grew up to become a 22-year-old husband and father.
It's unclear why the authorities decided to act on their suspicions yesterday. None of these allegations has been proven in court, where the suspects are expected to appear for the first time this morning.
Sources say the arrests involve a "homegrown" terrorism cell — Western youths who have never set foot in Afghanistan but allegedly were radicalized here, and who are thought to be potentially as dangerous as the cells that once took orders from Osama bin Laden. Western governments, including Canada's, have repeatedly warned of this phenomenon and blamed recent attacks, such as last July's bombings in London, as the work of such groups.
The investigation also led authorities to the targets they were intending to go after. Again, the Star continues:
For the spies who work on the 10th floor of a Front St. office building, with the CN Tower looming above and a hub of Toronto's tourist district buzzing below, this investigation was personal.
The group arrested yesterday allegedly had a list of targets, sources have told the Star, and the Toronto headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was one of them.
So were the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa and a smattering of other high-profile, heavily populated areas. But since most of the suspects lived in the GTA, it was the potential threat to the spy service's office and the chaos an attack would create in the heart of Toronto that concerned CSIS most.
According to sources, the suspects allegedly planned to target the spy service because many of them had encountered agents early in the investigation, when they were interviewed and put under surveillance. They also were allegedly angered by media reports accusing CSIS of racial profiling of Muslims.
Many of the agents were known to members of the group only by aliases, but the belief that the office had been targeted led to months of unease among CSIS staff, sources said.
Some of the group's members had even been spotted taking notes around the building, and at least one had reportedly visited the basement, one source told the Star.
What's better is that in addition to these twelve individuals, two people from America are implicated, as well.
Four months after authorities began to fear that Canada might have its own homegrown terrorist cell, two Americans entered the picture.
Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi descent who had attended high school in Ontario, and Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, a student at Georgia Tech, boarded a Greyhound bus in Atlanta on March 6, 2005, and travelled to Toronto to meet "like-minded Islamic extremists," a U.S. court document alleges.
At the time the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force was watching the U.S. pair, Sadequee, according to court documents, was already on a no-fly list. But they crossed the border uneventfully and met three people associated with the group the Canadian authorities were watching.
Ahmed later told authorities that the meetings were to discuss U.S. locations suitable for a terrorist strike, including oil refineries and military bases, court documents state. They also allegedly talked about how to dismantle the Global Positioning System in an effort to disrupt military and commercial communications and traffic, and their plans to go to Pakistan to train at "terrorist-sponsored camps." (The FBI claims Ahmed "later travelled to Pakistan in an attempt to receive just such training.")
Ahmed is now in U.S. custody, indicted in March for material support of terrorism. He has pleaded not guilty.
This was a coup of monumental proportions between the US and Canada, and that shows that our efforts to combat this threat are working. And it's definitely working for Canda right now, too, it seems.
Publius II
Yes, the religion of peace was eerily (and predictably) silent about a series of raids nabbing 12 suspects connected to possible terrorist attacks to be launched around Toronto. (HT: Captain Ed)
Police across the Greater Toronto Area launched counterterrorism raids Friday, arresting at least eight people in a roundup expected to continue overnight and beyond.
Media reports Saturday alleged that the suspects engaged in terror training camps north of Toronto. It was further alleged that a group were plotting to attack targets in Toronto including the headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
RCMP and CSIS officials were expected to address theses allegations at a press conference to be held Saturday morning at 10 .a.m.
“We anticipate more arrests, but not necessarily tonight,” an RCMP source said of the arrests, in what appeared to be the most concerted such sweep in Canada since the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service aided the RCMP and officers from Toronto, Peel and Durham in detaining the suspects, described by an undercover officer involved in the operation as “terrorists, the ones who hate the West.”
The ethnicity of the group was not clear. A well- placed police source said they are Muslims, but not Arabs, and unconnected to anti-terrorism raids that occurred simultaneously in Britain yesterday.
Quoting anonymous sources, CBC said the targets of the raid are suspected of connections with al-Qaeda. A Canadian Press report said the arrests stemmed from a plot involving explosives.
While the intended target is unclear, the plan was to detonate an explosive device in Ontario, a source who asked not to be named told Canadian Press. “That's the tool of choice for anybody who wants to cause damage.”
The suspects, whom one report said numbered 10, were being held at a Durham Regional Police station in Pickering, which late Friday night resembled a fortress under siege.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office declined to comment last night, saying the government does not want to interfere in police operations.
The Integrated National Enforcement Team, comprising the RCMP and other police, CSIS and federal agencies such as the Canada Border Services Agency, will hold a press conference this morning to outline charges and further details.
A source in Pickering said that during the day, heavily armed tactical officers were seen near a local mosque that serves about 1,000 families in the area. But a mosque trustee said he did not know of any police raids in the vicinity. He was at the mosque for 3 p.m. prayers and nothing seemed amiss, he said.
And thanks to the diligence of the captain, we also have a list of names:
1. Fahim Ahmad, 21, of Robinstone Drive, Toronto, Ontario;
2. Zakaria Amara, 20, of Periwinkle Crescent, Mississauga, Ontario;
3. Asad Ansari, 21, of Rosehurst Drive, Mississauga, Ontario;
4. Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30, of Lowville Heights, Mississauga, Ontario;
5. Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, of Montevideo Road, Mississauga, Ontario;
6. Mohammed Dirie, 22, Kingston, Ontario;
7. Yasim Abdi Mohamed, 24, Kingston, Ontario;
8. Jahmaal James, 23, of Trudelle Street, Toronto, Ontario;
9. Amin Mohamed Durrani, 19, of Stonehill Court, Toronto, Ontario;
10. Steven Vikash Chand alias Abdul Shakur, 25, of Treverton Drive, Toronto, Ontario;
11. Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21, of Robin Drive, Mississauga, Ontario;
12. Saad Khalid, 19, of Eclipse Avenue, Mississauga, Ontario.
In addition to these twelve people, Stephen Taylor reports this from the RCMP:
This group took steps to acquire three tonnes of ammonium nitrate and other components necessary to create explosive devices," said Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell. "To put this in context, the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people took one tonne of ammonium nitrate."
These were "homegrown" terrorists in Canada, inspired by the militant Islamicists fighting the forces of freedom and democracy around the globe; the coalition of the willing in the global war on terror. And how, pray tell, did the Mounties track these people down? It seems they are taking cues from the United States, as the Toronto Star reports:
Last night's dramatic police raid and arrest of as many as a dozen men — with more to come — marks the culmination of Canada's largest ever terrorism investigation into an alleged homegrown cell.
The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad.
Their words were sometimes encrypted, the Internet sites where they communicated allegedly restricted by passwords, but Canadian spies back in 2004 were reading them. And as the youths' words turned into actions, they began watching them.
According to sources close to the investigation, the suspects are teenagers and men in their 20s who had a relatively typical Canadian upbringing, but — allegedly spurred on by images of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan and angered by what they saw as the mistreatment of Muslims at home — became increasingly violent.
Police say they acquired weapons, picked targets and made detailed plans.
They travelled north to a "training camp" and made propaganda videos imitating jihadists who had battled in Afghanistan. At night, they washed up at a Tim Hortons nearby.
One was a math and chemistry whiz from Scarborough who grew up to become a 22-year-old husband and father.
It's unclear why the authorities decided to act on their suspicions yesterday. None of these allegations has been proven in court, where the suspects are expected to appear for the first time this morning.
Sources say the arrests involve a "homegrown" terrorism cell — Western youths who have never set foot in Afghanistan but allegedly were radicalized here, and who are thought to be potentially as dangerous as the cells that once took orders from Osama bin Laden. Western governments, including Canada's, have repeatedly warned of this phenomenon and blamed recent attacks, such as last July's bombings in London, as the work of such groups.
The investigation also led authorities to the targets they were intending to go after. Again, the Star continues:
For the spies who work on the 10th floor of a Front St. office building, with the CN Tower looming above and a hub of Toronto's tourist district buzzing below, this investigation was personal.
The group arrested yesterday allegedly had a list of targets, sources have told the Star, and the Toronto headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was one of them.
So were the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa and a smattering of other high-profile, heavily populated areas. But since most of the suspects lived in the GTA, it was the potential threat to the spy service's office and the chaos an attack would create in the heart of Toronto that concerned CSIS most.
According to sources, the suspects allegedly planned to target the spy service because many of them had encountered agents early in the investigation, when they were interviewed and put under surveillance. They also were allegedly angered by media reports accusing CSIS of racial profiling of Muslims.
Many of the agents were known to members of the group only by aliases, but the belief that the office had been targeted led to months of unease among CSIS staff, sources said.
Some of the group's members had even been spotted taking notes around the building, and at least one had reportedly visited the basement, one source told the Star.
What's better is that in addition to these twelve individuals, two people from America are implicated, as well.
Four months after authorities began to fear that Canada might have its own homegrown terrorist cell, two Americans entered the picture.
Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi descent who had attended high school in Ontario, and Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, a student at Georgia Tech, boarded a Greyhound bus in Atlanta on March 6, 2005, and travelled to Toronto to meet "like-minded Islamic extremists," a U.S. court document alleges.
At the time the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force was watching the U.S. pair, Sadequee, according to court documents, was already on a no-fly list. But they crossed the border uneventfully and met three people associated with the group the Canadian authorities were watching.
Ahmed later told authorities that the meetings were to discuss U.S. locations suitable for a terrorist strike, including oil refineries and military bases, court documents state. They also allegedly talked about how to dismantle the Global Positioning System in an effort to disrupt military and commercial communications and traffic, and their plans to go to Pakistan to train at "terrorist-sponsored camps." (The FBI claims Ahmed "later travelled to Pakistan in an attempt to receive just such training.")
Ahmed is now in U.S. custody, indicted in March for material support of terrorism. He has pleaded not guilty.
This was a coup of monumental proportions between the US and Canada, and that shows that our efforts to combat this threat are working. And it's definitely working for Canda right now, too, it seems.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 5:01 PM
1 Comments:
I'm still waiting for the Pelosis and the Kennedys and the ACLU and their Canadian counterparts to call for the release of these scumbags, since their capture was the result of a--gasp-- domestic spying program!!
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