Canada Dodges 'Terrorist Bullet'

[TIZReporter]

http://www.theinfozone.net/blogsphere.html

The Infozone features a look at what some bloggers are saying. The blogsphere is always interesting.

Canada's RCMP, CSIS and several other government agencies arrested 17 suspected terrorists on Friday who were plotting to attack Canadian landmarks. The suspected terrorists, apparently 'home grown' Canadian citizens were, according to police inspired by al qaida.

The Infozone reported on how individuals can become vigilant against terror attacks. Across the blogsphere, the arrest of the terror suspects, and the plot have been the subject of a lot of discussion.

Oracle of Ottawa writes, "We can all count our lucky stars today. The RCMP, along with CSIS have arrested 12 adults and 5 young offenders who were planning a series of terrorist attacks on a variety of targets in southern Ontario. All are Canadian residents from a variety of backgrounds, inspired by Al Qaeda. The suspects had they had the capacity and intent to carry out the attacks having acquired 3 tons of ammonium nitrate."

Steve Janke, Angry in the Great White North, blogs, "When the list of targets is made public, and the scope of the death and destruction that might have been wrought sinks in, who thinks the issue of capital punishment in Canada might once again be breached? Is it appropriate for special circumstances such as indiscriminate mass murder? It'll be interesting to see what the opponents will say now that the scenario is no longer merely hypothetical.

"Any bets on a free vote on capital punishment within the next 18 months?"

The Spirit of Man blogs, "All I could say about the recent anti-terror operations in Canada is that these terror suspects are fruits and rotten results of multi-culturalism (read Tribalism) in Canada!

"I'll write a longer input on this later and will share my opinions as a visible minority on multi-culturalism or better to say TRIBALISM in Canada as well. I am just getting my facts straight and trying to figure how & why the Cultural Mosaic will lose against Melting Pot of Cultures."

Joanne's Journey blogs, "Like everyone else, I am trying to come to terms with yesterday's events. Debris Trail has posted an awesome piece about our collective willful blindness with matters concerning security in our own country. It is worth the read for the literary value alone. The message resonates long afterward.

"I'm not going to pretend to have all the answers here, but I do think that we need to question our unremitting and sacrosanct commitment to multiculturalism, political correctness and fear of the appearance of racial profiling with regards to matters of national security."

This blogsphere report will be updated as more blogger reports come into the Infozone.

TIZ

 

[longeyes]

Wake-up time? Finally?

Or would the Canadians rather die as idealists than live as realists?

 

[hillbilly]

Here's another story on this, with what I think is a very pertinet section excerpted.


http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/66994.htm

The FBI said some of the suspects may have had limited contact with two Atlanta-area men recently arrested and indicted as part of a terrorism probe.

Georgia Tech student Syed Ahmed, 21, pleaded not guilty to charges of material support for terrorism. Ehsanul Sadequee, 19, is being jailed in Brooklyn after being arrested in Bangladesh on charges of making false statements to the FBI upon his departure from JFK Airport.

The men traveled to Canada in March 2005 to meet with "like-minded Islamic extremists," including three men believed to be among those busted Friday. Those three were subjects of an FBI international terrorism probe at the time.




Of course, this whole thing doesn't exist. Dubya Bush is making up the terror threat posed by militant Islam.

They have NOT been at war with us for the past 30 years.

They DO NOT want to kill all us infidel pig dogs.

Even Michael Moore tells us that the terror threat is imaginary.

hillbilly

 

[hillbilly]

Stories are beginning to appear in several major American papers on this.


http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060604/news_1n4canada.html

Canada thwarts terror threat

17 accused of plotting fertilizer bomb attacks

By Ian Austen and David Johnston
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

June 4, 2006

OTTAWA – Seventeen Canadian residents were arrested and charged with plotting to attack targets in southern Ontario with crude but powerful fertilizer bombs, the Canadian authorities said yesterday.

The arrests represented one of the largest counterterrorism sweeps in North America since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. U.S. officials said the plot did not involve any targets in the United States, but added that its full dimension was unknown.


At a news conference in Toronto, home to at least six suspects, police and intelligence officials said they had been monitoring the group for some time and moved in to make the arrests Friday after the group arranged to take delivery of three tons of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that can be made into an explosive when combined with fuel oil.
“It was their intent to use it for a terrorist attack,” said Mike McDonell, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police assistant commissioner. He said that by comparison, the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people was carried out “with only one ton of ammonium nitrate.”

The 17 men, all of whom had Arabic names, were mainly of South Asian descent and most were in their teens or early 20s. One of the men was 30 years old and the oldest was 43 years old, police officials said. None of them had any known affiliation with al-Qaeda.

“They represent the broad strata of our society,” McDonell said. “Some are students, some are employed, some are unemployed.”

The Canadian police declined to identify specific targets, though they did dismiss reports in the news media that Toronto's subway system was on the list. The Toronto Star, citing an unidentified source, said the group had a list that included the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa as well as the Toronto branch office of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. At yesterday's news conference, officials emphasized that the targets were all in Canada.

Officials at the news conference displayed purported bomb-making materials including a red cell phone wired to what appeared to be an explosives detonator inside a black toolbox.

In the United States, the arrests reignited fears among American counterterrorism officials about the porous northern border even as the Bush administration and lawmakers have focused attention on hardening the southern border to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants.

Since the arrest of Ahmed Ressam in December 1999 as he tried to smuggle explosive chemicals into Washington state in a plot to strike targets that included the Los Angeles international airport, authorities have expressed fears that extremists could use Canada as a platform to make attacks inside the United States.

The arrests came at the end of a week of furious debate over federal spending for homeland security, with officials in cities like New York and Washington bitterly criticizing Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, for not allocating more money to cities thought likely to remain high on the terrorist target list for al-Qaeda and other extremist groups.

Counterterrorism officials said that interviews with suspects would provide greater clarity about the nature of the plot, but they said the men had taken a significant step, moving beyond the planning stage, toward acquiring a large quantity of potentially explosive fertilizer.

It was not clear whether the group ever had possession of the chemicals. When a police spokeswoman, Cpl. Michele Paradis, was asked whether the group had the three tons of chemicals in their possession and if the police had “seized” it, she replied: “That's difficult to answer. They made arrangements to have it delivered and they took delivery.”

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement that “these individuals were allegedly intent on committing acts of terrorism against their own country, and their own people. Canada is not immune to the threat of terrorism.”

Intelligence and security agents have been aware of some the suspects for nearly two years, according to reports and statements by officials here. The suspects allegedly met at a “training camp,” according to police near Toronto, and made videotapes of their training.

The FBI issued a statement yesterday saying there was a “preliminary indication” that some of the Canadian subjects might have had “limited contact” with two people from Georgia who were recently arrested. Those two were Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, 19, an American of Bangladeshi descent, and Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, a Pakistani-born American.

Law-enforcement officials said Sadequee and Ahmed had made “casing” videos of various sites in Washington, D.C. Officials also said their case was linked to the arrests of several men in Britain last fall, and that the two were believed to have met with “like-minded Islamic extremists” in Canada in March 2005.

A counterterrorism official in the United States said that while there was contact between the Georgia men earlier this year and those arrested in Canada on Friday, there was no evidence that the Georgia suspects were involved in the bombing plot.

The suspects were arrested in a series of raids that began late Friday night and continued until early yesterday morning, in Toronto; the Toronto suburb of Mississauga; and Kingston, a college town southwest of Ottawa.

All of the men under arrest were taken to a heavily fortified police station in Pickering, Ontario, a city east of Toronto. Five were under the age of 18 and not identified by the authorities. The others were identified as 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, alias Abdul Shakur, 25; Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21; and Saad Khalid, 19.

The suspects appeared in a Toronto court yesterday to face charges under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act. The law was passed shortly after the 9/11 attacks and after Osama bin Laden named Canada as one of five “Christian” nations that should be terror targets. The other countries – the United States, Britain, Spain and Australia – have all been targeted.

 

[longeyes]

One more example--illegal immigration being the other recent notable one--of the Elephant in the Living Room phenomenon in social terms. Sometimes things too terrible to see become "invisible."

I'm reminded of the Kafka story, "Investigations of a Dog," recommended reading to all on this forum. In this absurdist tale a dog decides to investigate the origins of food. His race cannot perceive men or women. Why? Too shameful to acknowledge their dependent state.

 

[Manedwolf]

The thing it seems like a lot of people aren't yet realizing with open border and unsecured ports is just what a consumer-venue attack could do to the US economy.

Consumer spending is what drives the greater part of it. Now, what would happen if some nutcase blew themselves up in a mall, or several malls, or wal-marts, etc?

Besides the immediate loss of life, I could certainly see the entire retail sector crashing as consumers stayed home in droves in fear.

 

[444]

A little off topic

"The thing it seems like a lot of people aren't yet realizing with open border and unsecured ports is just what a consumer-venue attack could do to the US economy. "

Entertainment Only:
Please allow me to plug a good novel: SHTF, Terrorist Attacks, Illegal Immigration, Severe blow to the economy...................... It was written by a guy that was in my Frontsight Practical Rifle class a couple months ago and just came out. Very timely senario. I am about halfway through it and so far it is pretty good: A Well Regulated Militia by John J. Carpenter: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/14...f=pd_bbs_1/104-1347011-0378360?_encoding=UTF8

 

[longeyes]

The thing it seems like a lot of people aren't yet realizing with open border and unsecured ports is just what a consumer-venue attack could do to the US economy.

Consumer spending is what drives the greater part of it. Now, what would happen if some nutcase blew themselves up in a mall, or several malls, or wal-marts, etc?

Maybe the U.S. needs to get beyond the idea that we are consumers on the cusp of the abyss. We have a lot more to worry about than "the economy." The nation's survival is at stake.

Citizen died when Consumer was born.

 

[BootnyLeeFarnsworth]

Wow. Just catching some of the details on major US newspapers now.
Few points...
1. Looks like good investigative police work paid off in a VERY big way. Too early to tell, but it appears it was police/investigators not the military that solved this one. I'll assume this investigation was cheaper than the war in Iraq (on the order of $1Trillion in the long run), and possibly much more effective. I assume this point will be sufficiently lost in the media spin.
2. Points brought up in this thread about how THEY (militant muslims) are out to kill US (infidels). Probably true, but don't forget that THEY are a small part of the muslim population.
3. Less than 6 months from a major US election that would possibly change the political landscape (possibly back to a 2-party system), and the focus is again going to be on terrorism for the time being as opposed to the occupation of Iraq. Should be interesting to see how the Dems can lose all made up ground by shooting themselves in the feet over this one!!

I wonder how much of the spin from the next few weeks will focus on the smart/effective use of police and investigative techniques instead of things like the death penalty (a deterrent against mass-murderers and suicide bombers???), "securing" our ports (what's the cost/benefit of the proposed plans???), illegal immigration, invasion of Iran, etc, etc. It's a shame, there's probably plenty of useful information to learn from this case on how to effectively stop a real (not movie-scenario) imminent terrorist attack.

Can't wait to find out details of how they actually prepared for the attack. What could have stopped them sooner?
Did they attempt to bring nail clippers on any airplanes?
Did they smuggle in WMDs from Iraq?
Were they citizens of those Axis of Evil countries?
Did they all appear on that terrorist watch list with Teddy Kennedy?
Did any of them illegally cross into Canada from Mexico by crossing the Rio Grande?
Were they Democrats?
Did they listen to rap music?

 

[Manedwolf]

Maybe the U.S. needs to get beyond the idea that we are consumers on the cusp of the abyss. We have a lot more to worry about than "the economy." The nation's survival is at stake.

Citizen died when Consumer was born.

The problem is that the nation's very existence is now far too demanding on that supply chain...self-sufficiency is gone. If the food trucks were unable to roll, if shipping companies had issues, suppliers were losing money and had to scale back, so on and so on, there would be chaos and loss of order...well...in short order.

 

[BootnyLeeFarnsworth]

http://www.torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2006/06/04/1613948-sun.html

The al-Qaida inspired terrorist cell police say they smashed was plotting to bomb "hard" government targets rather than "soft" civilian ones such as shopping malls or nightclubs, Sun sources say.

--

Interesting that they were targeting government targets as opposed to "soft" civilian targets, since a lot of the movie-terror-scenarios keep bringing up the what if questions on those very "soft" targets.

Don't worry too much about it, though, we in the US are still just at Elevated/Yellow threat level (http://www.dhs.gov) - the lowest level we've been at since it's inception. No need to stock up on duct-tape yet.

 

[longeyes]

The problem is that the nation's very existence is now far too demanding on that supply chain...self-sufficiency is gone. If the food trucks were unable to roll, if shipping companies had issues, suppliers were losing money and had to scale back, so on and so on, there would be chaos and loss of order...well...in short order.

Maybe we need to spend more time pondering this, less time pondering American Idol?

 

[TIZReporter]

Terror Plot Started in Internet Chat Room

Plot began in chat room
CSIS monitored discussions on bombing targets
'Training camp' visit turning point for investigators
Jun. 5, 2006. 05:21 AM
NICOLAAS VAN RIJN
STAFF REPORTER

For most Canadians, ammonium nitrate — even after it was used to destroy the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, including dozens of kids in a daycare centre —is nothing much more than a commonly used plant fertilizer.

Farmers buy and use it by the tonne, mixing it into the soil to ensure a bountiful crop.

But mix ammonium nitrate with the inflammatory rhetoric of an Internet chat room, and it instantly acquires the potential to become something entirely different, needing only the addition of a little fuel oil to turn it into a lethal bomb.

So when a shadowy group of disaffected urban youth began talking in an Internet chat room in the fall of 2004 espousing anti-Western views, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was listening.

The spy agency, and an alphabet soup of other security agencies across the continent, closely monitor such sites, where talk may sometimes turn to buildings and bombs and bringing global jihad home to North America, to Canada.

Often it's just that — talk — but when CSIS began monitoring the sites allegedly used by some of the 17 men and youths arrested on terrorism-related charges in a sweeping series of raids across the GTA Friday evening, the Canadian spy agency heard enough to remain interested, and increased surveillance of the group.

While CSIS and police typically won't talk about their operational methods, the available techniques range from monitoring electronic communications, from cell phones and landlines to emails and computers, to physically following persons of interest as they move about and talk to others.

Four months after the surveillance began, two Americans, from the Atlanta, Ga., area, popped onto the radar.

Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee had been communicating by email with the Canadian group, investigators allege, and in March 2005 the two hopped on a Greyhound bus, paying $280 (U.S.) for two round-trip tickets to Toronto, where, according to U.S. court documents, they were to meet with "like-minded Islamists."

"According to Ahmed ... they met regularly with at least three subjects of an FBI international terrorism investigation," the court documents allege, and discussed "strategic locations in the United States suitable for a terrorist strike."

By now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was involved, and also monitoring members of the Canadian group. The federal police service was brought into the case Nov. 17, 2004, by CSIS agents who believed they had enough information to warrant a criminal investigation.

According to the Los Angeles Times, U.S. authorities were also watching the two Americans, and at some point discovered communications between the men in Canada and Atlanta and other suspected terrorists overseas, including a group arrested in London last fall that counted among its members a computer specialist who used the Arabic word irhabi — for terrorist — as his Internet handle, Irhabi007.

Talk in the group was wide-ranging, according to an American law enforcement official, "about a whole range of targets." Officials and U.S. court documents allege group members were scouting targets that included Canadian government buildings, American oil refineries, and a U.S. tower that they believed controlled global positioning systems used in aviation.

Federal prosecutors in New York also told a recent hearing Sadequee and Ahmed had visited Washington and videotaped the U.S. Capitol, the World Bank headquarters and some fuel storage facilities.

They were charged in March and April and are awaiting trial.

Ahmed, a Pakistani native who has pleaded not guilty, arrived in the U.S. with his family when he was about 12 and is now an American citizen; Sadequee, whose family came from Bangladesh, was born in Virginia; he has been denied bail and is awaiting trial.

In August, 2005, Canadian investigators were watching closely as a car tried to cross back into Canada across the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie. Pulled over by a student working with the Canadian Border Services Agency, the car was rented by Fahim Ahmad, 22 — arrested as part of Friday's sweep — for two others, 24-year-old Yasin Abdi Mohamed of Toronto and Ali Dirie, 22, last of Markham.

Mohamed was found with a loaded handgun tucked in his waistband; Dirie had two pistols taped to his inner thighs; both are now serving two-year sentences.

No charges were laid against Ahmad for making the vehicle available. Not then.

By last winter federal investigators were becoming increasingly concerned about the Canadian group, stressing that it shouldn't be underestimated. Among the things that set alarm bells ringing was an alleged visit to a northern Ontario "training camp" by group members; what they did there or how long they stayed hasn't been revealed.

But investigators allege some of the group's members made a video showing them imitating military manoeuvres. And, police say, the suspects had allegedly acquired guns.

By February, intelligence analysts saw the group as the country's greatest terrorism threat, and called an unusual high-level briefing for chiefs of Ontario's police forces, including Toronto police Chief Bill Blair.

Not long after that investigators brought Toronto Mayor David Miller into the loop, alerting him to a terror investigation that might include a Toronto building as its target.

Although no one is saying so officially, the CSIS headquarters, on Front St. in the shadow of the CN Tower, was among the possible targets — but not, officials stressed during a news conference Saturday, the TTC.

The lengthy investigation took on added urgency this month when talk in the group allegedly turned to acquiring three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, enough to build several powerful bombs.

The rental truck used by Timothy McVeigh to destroy the eight-storey Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was loaded with only a third of that amount; his victims included 168 dead and more than 800 wounded.

Like the CSIS building, the Murrah complex was filled with law enforcement offices.

By the end of last week, investigators felt they had enough evidence to move in on the group.

Although police haven't officially said so, sources have told the Star's Michelle Shephard that the final act in the multi-year investigation came when federal agents intercepted the group's order for the fertilizer, and arranged to have it delivered by truck.

But, the Star has learned, police switched the fertilizer with a harmless powder before making the delivery.

After the deal was done, the handcuffs came out.

At around the same time an elite team led by the RCMP's anti-terrorism task force, comprising federal agents and police officers from forces including Toronto, York, Durham and Peel, began swooping down on locations in Mississauga and Toronto.

Heavily armed officers and armoured vehicles were used in the raids, and police say they met with no resistance in arresting 12 adult males and five juveniles. Most were processed that night at a heavily-guarded Durham police station in Pickering, and appeared in Brampton court the next morning, also under heavy security.

On Saturday, at a 10 a.m. news conference, investigators began revealing some of what they know.

Chiefs of the Toronto, Peel, York and Durham police forces, and representatives from the OPP and CSIS, flanked RCMP Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell as he outlined what police say were their plans for the fertilizer.

"It was their intent to use it for a terrorist attack," McDonell said. "If I can put this in context for you, the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people was completed with only one tonne of ammonium nitrate.

"This group posed a real and serious threat," McDonell emphasized. "It had the capacity and intent to carry out these acts."

Behind him, a tabletop held evidence from the Friday evening raids, including a 9-mm Luger pistol, military fatigues, a grab-bag of items ranging from two-way radios, knives and flashlights to duct tape, and a sample bag of ammonium nitrate.

Six of the accused adults are from Mississauga, four from Toronto and two are serving time in a Kingston prison on gun-smuggling charges. Most of the men are in their 20s, although one is 30, another 43.

Police have said they will not discuss the five juveniles arrested during the sweep.

Charges against the men — who return to Brampton court Tuesday — include participating in or contributing to the activity of a terrorist group, including training and recruitment; providing or making available property for terrorist purposes; and the commission of indictable offences including firearms and explosives offences for the benefit of or in association with a terrorist group.

This marks only the second time that such charges have been laid since the Criminal Code was amended in 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, to include terrorism offences.

It's also the first time police have made arrests to stop what they allege was an imminent terror attack on Canadian soil.

For neighbours of the 10 men and five juveniles who appeared in Brampton court Saturday — Yasin Abdi Mohamed and Ali Dirie, in prison in Kingston, did not appear — the arrests and charges came mostly as a shock.

They talked of quiet men, religious men, who played basketball and went to school and looked for jobs, of an elder who mentored younger men, but mostly, of men who kept to themselves, coming and going silently to and from their homes in Mississauga and Toronto.

"They never spoke to anyone," said one neighbour.

One youngster talked of the older brother, 19, who'd often disappear, for weeks at a time, without telling anyone where he was going.

"I heard he was going to some camp," the younger brother said. "But I don't know anything about it."

But eventually the older brother and his friends would reappear, the boy recalled, usually with a gift.

"They brought me a lot of stuff, like army suits and caps," the boy said. "Sometimes, he'll go get pizza."

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Ar
ticle_Type1&c=Article&cid=1149460818073&call_pageid=968332188492&col=9687
93972154&t=TS_Home

 

[Just_a_dude_with_a_gun]

Before long, Canada will be rethinking it's immigration policies, and it's citizens
will be rethinking having been so nice and accomidating to islamic fundimentalists, their families (which is a lot of people) and supporters (which is nearly all other muslims).

Muslims don't care where the money goes when they give to a charity or a mosque, so long as it goes towards helping muslims, regardless of the recipient's intensions.

 

[Manedwolf]

Whatever one thinks of Canada's political system, based on what I've read of this, from the focus on the right chatrooms to the switching of the cargo en-route... Good show by the investigators in Canada. Nicely planned, nicely executed.