*** I hope the wiretaps hold up and I hope they do a proper analysis of the contents. It could be just like the Toronto 18 case; everyone swearing up and down the suspect(s) are not involved and the lo and behold - their voices on tape confirming it. MS ***
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100831/national/rcmp_terror_arrests
By Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press
ADVERTISEMENT
OTTAWA - Wiretaps expected to be introduced in court Friday may also help connect the dots between a suspect charged with assault and the arrests of three other men on terrorism charges.
While the RCMP arrested the 20-year-old Ottawa man last week in connection with their year-long homegrown terror probe, he wasn't charged in that case.
Instead, he is now being detained on unrelated domestic assault charges.
A bail hearing in the assault case was held Tuesday, but a decision pushed back until the end of the week because the Crown provided the defence with its evidence only on Tuesday morning.
The man's lawyer, Richard Morris, asked for the court delay.
"Part of the process is you're trying to maximize the odds of success and part of that from my perspective is making sure I know the case the Crown is going to bring against my client, so I can answer it properly and completely," said Morris.
While many media outlets have named the individual, The Canadian Press has refrained from doing so because the RCMP has not publicly linked the man to the terrorism probe, nor indicated it will proceed any further.
Morris said he would meet with his client later Tuesday to review the 19 different evidentiary documents provided by the Crown, including transcripts of the wiretaps. Morris said he'll also listen to the audio itself.
"They appear to be conversations, I don't even know who is in the conversations at this point," Morris said outside court.
Neither side is expected to ask for a publication ban on the evidence on Friday, meaning whatever is on the tapes can be made public.
Morris said he wasn't concerned that the information could be overly prejudicial.
"My view is that if any one of us had a microphone in our house for a period of time we'd probably be embarrassed if some of the material comes out, and I trust the public will realize that," he said.
The man's sister and father are also expected to be called as witnesses.
He didn't speak in court Tuesday, save for telling the justice his name.
Included in the group of people at the courthouse were several young Muslim women who bided the time before the hearing trading stories about how hard it is to be a young female Muslim.
Outside the courthouse, they pushed back at a news photographer attempting to take their photo, yelling at her that she didn't have ethics or morals.
A cluster of young men awaiting the court hearing gathered around a copy of a local newspaper featuring the man's story.
As one of them put it: "They don't have anything on him. It even says so." (MS: That is why local papers do not substitute for evidence.)
Outside court, one of the men said he was worried about justice taking too long.
"I see a lot of delays, fumbling around and procrastination," said Troy Rambaran, who said he knows the man and his family.
"That's not how it's supposed to be going on. I feel that it's an abuse of power."
Morris said his client was frustrated by the delay.
"He was looking forward to the bail hearing," he said.
"Just because of the inherent slowness of the process, he's frustrated in that goal."
Three other men are in custody after a year-long investigation by the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and other agencies.
Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh, 30, and Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, both of Ottawa and Khurram Syed Sher, 28, of London, Ont., are charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
They were expected to appear in court Wednesday.
Morris said he didn't know whether his client knew any of the terror suspects.
They were arrested after an investigation that included the discovery of more than 50 electronic circuit boards, supposedly designed to be remote detonators for explosive devices.
Police also seized videos, terrorist literature and bomb-related documents.
Police claim the terrorism plot stretches from Ottawa to Afghanistan, Dubai, Iran and Pakistan. But there has been no official word on the alleged targets.
Morris said he had no indication that terrorism charges against his client were coming.
But the strangeness of his client's case so far means anything is possible, the lawyer suggested.
The man was arrested Friday, released on bail Saturday and then promptly rearrested again.
"It's getting to the point where little surprises me," said Morris.
Showing posts with label CSIS RCMP terrorism case. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CSIS RCMP terrorism case. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
TO TACKLE TERRORISM - END FOREIGN WARS
*** We all know violence only begets more violence - it is a rule of nature. However my view is that Canada CANNOT stay out of all conflicts in the Muslim world because fact is, some of those places are doing terrible things to their OWN people and then we DEMAND Canada do something. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. MS ***
A news story answers five Ws — who, what, when, where and why. But the “why” has mostly been missing from the coverage of the latest terrorism case in Canada.
We’ve been told a great deal about the 50-plus electronic circuit boards designed to remotely detonate bombs in Ottawa, yet very little about the motives of the Canadian citizens charged.
Serge Therriault, chief RCMP investigator, said that the group was opposed to the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan.
This is the fourth major terrorism case in Canada and all four have had to do with Afghanistan.
The Toronto 18 (who became the Toronto 11 after charges were withdrawn against seven) were convicted for plotting to attack civilian targets in Toronto and Ottawa with a view to forcing the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan.
In February, Said Namouh of Montreal was convicted on four terrorism charges related to his involvement in a plan to bomb targets in Germany and Austria because of those countries’ military presence in Afghanistan.
In 2008, Momin Khawaja of Ottawa was convicted for helping British terrorists angry at the NATO war in Afghanistan.
Stephen Harper has said — as had George W. Bush and as does Barack Obama — that we are in Afghanistan to ensure that the terrorists don’t come here. The counter-argument has been that they might come here precisely because we are there.
It has turned out worse. Terrorists don’t have to come here to attack us. Their sympathizers here will. They may act for Al Qaeda and the Taliban or act on their own. Some may go to Pakistan for military training but many may assemble a bomb from a manual downloaded from the Internet.
Some may be religious, many not. Some may invoke Islam but many act out of solidarity with Muslims. They may be immigrants or, more likely, second-generation Canadians, as Public Safety Minister Vic Towes said Thursday.
They may be “the most unlikely individuals” — engineers, doctors, hospital technicians, seemingly well integrated, such as the pathologist Khurram Sher, a product of and participant in the popular culture of NHL hockey and Canadian Idol. Or they may be uneducated, unemployed, troubled, disaffected.
All this refutes the clichés we have been fed for the last nine years about terrorists:
They are all “Islamic radicals” nurtured in madrassas or mosques, brainwashed into jihad by antediluvian imams. If only the madrassas could be shut down, the imams made to shut up, and “moderate” Muslims rise up against “radical Islam,” the danger would disappear.
This fantasy had a purpose.
If Islam could be made the issue, writes Ron Paul, a Republican congressman, then “radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11,” and not “a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation.”
We’ve had the Afghan and Iraq wars since.
Baroness Manningham-Buller, former head of M15, the British security agency, said last month that Britain’s “involvement in Iraq radicalized a whole generation of young people . . . who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as an attack on Islam.” It led to an “almost overwhelming” increase in homegrown terrorism.
Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, said in June that American authorities are alarmed at the flurry of terrorist plots, by those directed by Al Qaeda and by “self-radicalized” militants.
Towes, too, talked about the threat posed by “homegrown” and “self-radicalized” terrorists in Canada.
So while Al Qaeda and its offshoots are weaker than they’ve ever been since 2001, says Panetta, the threat of the terrorist next door has increased.
The solution is not to panic or hector the Muslim community to rein in their own — they would if they could — but rather to stop being in denial that there is no connection between the wars we wage and the terrorist mayhem that they trigger, there and here.
No state can be held hostage by terrorists into changing its foreign policy. Such actors must be ferreted out, charged, convicted and jailed — as they have been, thanks to the good work of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP, other police forces and our judicial system.
Yet such cases should give us pause — so that we are not herded into blindly backing endless wars and occupations abroad.
hsiddiqui@thestar.ca
A news story answers five Ws — who, what, when, where and why. But the “why” has mostly been missing from the coverage of the latest terrorism case in Canada.
We’ve been told a great deal about the 50-plus electronic circuit boards designed to remotely detonate bombs in Ottawa, yet very little about the motives of the Canadian citizens charged.
Serge Therriault, chief RCMP investigator, said that the group was opposed to the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan.
This is the fourth major terrorism case in Canada and all four have had to do with Afghanistan.
The Toronto 18 (who became the Toronto 11 after charges were withdrawn against seven) were convicted for plotting to attack civilian targets in Toronto and Ottawa with a view to forcing the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan.
In February, Said Namouh of Montreal was convicted on four terrorism charges related to his involvement in a plan to bomb targets in Germany and Austria because of those countries’ military presence in Afghanistan.
In 2008, Momin Khawaja of Ottawa was convicted for helping British terrorists angry at the NATO war in Afghanistan.
Stephen Harper has said — as had George W. Bush and as does Barack Obama — that we are in Afghanistan to ensure that the terrorists don’t come here. The counter-argument has been that they might come here precisely because we are there.
It has turned out worse. Terrorists don’t have to come here to attack us. Their sympathizers here will. They may act for Al Qaeda and the Taliban or act on their own. Some may go to Pakistan for military training but many may assemble a bomb from a manual downloaded from the Internet.
Some may be religious, many not. Some may invoke Islam but many act out of solidarity with Muslims. They may be immigrants or, more likely, second-generation Canadians, as Public Safety Minister Vic Towes said Thursday.
They may be “the most unlikely individuals” — engineers, doctors, hospital technicians, seemingly well integrated, such as the pathologist Khurram Sher, a product of and participant in the popular culture of NHL hockey and Canadian Idol. Or they may be uneducated, unemployed, troubled, disaffected.
All this refutes the clichés we have been fed for the last nine years about terrorists:
They are all “Islamic radicals” nurtured in madrassas or mosques, brainwashed into jihad by antediluvian imams. If only the madrassas could be shut down, the imams made to shut up, and “moderate” Muslims rise up against “radical Islam,” the danger would disappear.
This fantasy had a purpose.
If Islam could be made the issue, writes Ron Paul, a Republican congressman, then “radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11,” and not “a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation.”
We’ve had the Afghan and Iraq wars since.
Baroness Manningham-Buller, former head of M15, the British security agency, said last month that Britain’s “involvement in Iraq radicalized a whole generation of young people . . . who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as an attack on Islam.” It led to an “almost overwhelming” increase in homegrown terrorism.
Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, said in June that American authorities are alarmed at the flurry of terrorist plots, by those directed by Al Qaeda and by “self-radicalized” militants.
Towes, too, talked about the threat posed by “homegrown” and “self-radicalized” terrorists in Canada.
So while Al Qaeda and its offshoots are weaker than they’ve ever been since 2001, says Panetta, the threat of the terrorist next door has increased.
The solution is not to panic or hector the Muslim community to rein in their own — they would if they could — but rather to stop being in denial that there is no connection between the wars we wage and the terrorist mayhem that they trigger, there and here.
No state can be held hostage by terrorists into changing its foreign policy. Such actors must be ferreted out, charged, convicted and jailed — as they have been, thanks to the good work of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP, other police forces and our judicial system.
Yet such cases should give us pause — so that we are not herded into blindly backing endless wars and occupations abroad.
hsiddiqui@thestar.ca
Friday, August 27, 2010
CSIS / RCMP MAKE GAIN IN STATURE WITH ARRESTS
If any comfort can come out of the raid in Ottawa, which took down an alleged domestic terrorism cell, it's that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) may have finally found its stride.
It's closing in on elite status.
Finally, it can put behind the dysfunction of its Air India investigation of 25 years ago when CSIS, in its infancy, didn't share information (/informants - MS) with the RCMP, and the RCMP reciprocated with equal contempt.
Now it is gaining some stature.
Some international credibility.
With its success in the detection of the Toronto 18, and its role in the takedown in Ottawa of yet another alleged homegrown terrorist operation by integrated police forces led by the RCMP, it can be almost be spoken in the same breath as Britain's MI6. (MI-6 is international, MI-5 domestic, like CSIS)
This is no small feat.
CSIS and the RCMP are now on the same page, which bodes well for our security and the global war on terrorism. After all, there are snakes in every rock pile.
Back in May, CSIS director Dick Fadden told a Commons committee his spies were monitoring 200 such rock piles in Canada, one of them obviously being Operation Samosa, which now has three men linked to al-Qaida under arrest, including a 2008 Canadian Idol reject who savagely butchered an Avril Lavigne tune.
It's Complicated -- the song, as well as this scenario.
But do not immediately dismiss this Idol clown as some fumbling incompetent. If you do, do so at your peril.
As Fadden put it, "Accused terrorists are routinely portrayed as being too unsophisticated, ill-prepared or youthful to actually commit heinous acts.
"This theme permeated coverage of those charged in the Toronto plot," he added. "Some terrorists are, like those many spy novels, enormously resourceful and talented. Others are simply determined, but fairly average foot soldiers."
Fadden then cited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. While he was not a particularly gifted individual, said Fadden, his 1995 actions nonetheless killed 168 people, injured almost 700, and damaged more than 300 buildings within a 16-block radius.
In other words, just because someone can't sing, doesn't mean he cannot set off an IED detonator.
The song may have been Complicated.
But bombs aren't.
It's closing in on elite status.
Finally, it can put behind the dysfunction of its Air India investigation of 25 years ago when CSIS, in its infancy, didn't share information (/informants - MS) with the RCMP, and the RCMP reciprocated with equal contempt.
Now it is gaining some stature.
Some international credibility.
With its success in the detection of the Toronto 18, and its role in the takedown in Ottawa of yet another alleged homegrown terrorist operation by integrated police forces led by the RCMP, it can be almost be spoken in the same breath as Britain's MI6. (MI-6 is international, MI-5 domestic, like CSIS)
This is no small feat.
CSIS and the RCMP are now on the same page, which bodes well for our security and the global war on terrorism. After all, there are snakes in every rock pile.
Back in May, CSIS director Dick Fadden told a Commons committee his spies were monitoring 200 such rock piles in Canada, one of them obviously being Operation Samosa, which now has three men linked to al-Qaida under arrest, including a 2008 Canadian Idol reject who savagely butchered an Avril Lavigne tune.
It's Complicated -- the song, as well as this scenario.
But do not immediately dismiss this Idol clown as some fumbling incompetent. If you do, do so at your peril.
As Fadden put it, "Accused terrorists are routinely portrayed as being too unsophisticated, ill-prepared or youthful to actually commit heinous acts.
"This theme permeated coverage of those charged in the Toronto plot," he added. "Some terrorists are, like those many spy novels, enormously resourceful and talented. Others are simply determined, but fairly average foot soldiers."
Fadden then cited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. While he was not a particularly gifted individual, said Fadden, his 1995 actions nonetheless killed 168 people, injured almost 700, and damaged more than 300 buildings within a 16-block radius.
In other words, just because someone can't sing, doesn't mean he cannot set off an IED detonator.
The song may have been Complicated.
But bombs aren't.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
HOMEGROWN CANADIAN TERRORISTS - HOW THEY ARE LURED
*** Yet, the RCMP thinks it can deal with this without the Muslim community. Interesting. MS ***
OTTAWA -- He lived in a quiet townhouse in Ottawa, with a Mazda parked in the driveway. Neighbors could think of nothing unusual about about him.
The terror suspects arrested in Ottawa this morning are being described as ordinary Canadians who were allegedly attracted to al-Qaeda’s message of violence.
The case suggests that four years after the RCMP and CSIS broke up the Toronto 18, Canada is still confronting similar groups of extremists who support al-Qaeda.
This “homegrown Islamist extremism,” as CSIS refers to it, is Canada’s number one terrorist threat, according to senior intelligence and law enforcement officials.
“Right now we’re seeing a trend around what you would call the homegrown type of terrorism,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud said in a recent interview.
“Young Canadians are being radicalized to an extremist ideology and want to support that ideology with violence,” said A. Comm. Michaud, the head of National Security Criminal Investigations.
Early on Wednesday, the RCMP and Ottawa Police Service broke up an alleged Ottawa terrorist group with suspected affiliations to al-Qaeda. The ringleader had alleged trained in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region.
More details were expected at a news conference on Thursday. The suspects appear to have similar backgrounds to the Toronto 18, young Canadians who plotted attacks in southern Ontario, suggesting homegrown radicalization remains a problem for Canada.
“It’s not diminishing,” said Michael King, a McGill University PhD student who has been researching radicalization. “It seems like it’s either keeping constant or increasing, so I would agree that its’ definitely a big problem.”
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said in an Aug. 9 speech that radicalization and the movement of Canadians to overseas training camps were increasing concerns. “These individuals reject the values on which our country is based, and they must be stopped,” he said.
But it is not a simple task.
Al-Qaeda and its affiliates are ardent propagandists. They use the Internet to promote their dark ideology, which revolves around the belief that there is a Western conspiracy against Islam and that terrorism is justified both to defend the religion and impose it on non-Muslims.
“We don’t have an issue with anybody that has extremist views,” A. Comm. Michaud said. “But it does become criminal when somebody wants to use violence to support those views, so that is one of the threats that we’re seeing more and more.”
Experts and officials said homegrown extremists are now becoming radicalized mostly on the Internet. They may then make their own way to overseas training camps.
At those camps, al-Qaeda and its affiliates are apparently encouraging Western recruits to return to their home countries to carry out attacks. They are not given specific missions or targets but are told to strike when opportunity arises.
“It’s self-radicalization basically and the Internet plays a big part in that process,” A. Comm. Michaud said. “Self-radicalization and then taking the steps that they need in order to join whatever group that they feel they should affiliate with.”
Police and intelligence officers are monitoring Canadians they suspect are training in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. The main concern is that they will return to Canada to conduct terrorist operations.
“That they would go and receive training in terrorist tactics is our first concern,” the assistant commissioner said. “But then the second one is, what do they do once they receive this training?
“To use it overseas against allied countries is one thing. But also if ever they were to come back to Canada, then we find individuals that have that capacity to use those skills on our soil. So that is definitely a major concern.”
Some extremists are candid about their views. Salman Hossain, a self-professed extremist Muslim from Mississauga, Ont., repeatedly posted messages on his website calling for terrorist attacks in Canada. But most are more secretive, using code words to chat about getting “married,” a term for martyred.
Homegrown radicalization became a concern for Canada when Mohamed Jabarah of St. Catharines was arrested in 2002 after he joined al-Qaeda and attempted to bomb the U.S. embassy in Singapore. In 2004, Ottawa-born Momin Khawaja was arrested over his role in a British terror group that plotted attacks around London.
A classified 2007 CSIS study said the causes of radicalization varied but included the influence of family and charismatic spiritual leaders, overseas travel, conversion and anger at the perceived oppression of Muslims.
“Once the radicalization process has begun, individuals start to find diverse ways to develop their extremist beliefs in Canada,” the study says. “They do so through a variety of networks, both real and virtual.
“These individuals appear to be part of Western society,” it adds. “In fact, they appear so Canadian that they are difficult to detect. Such individuals then move on to a series of radical activities, ranging from propaganda and recruiting, to terrorist training and participation in extremist operations.”
A recent report by the Demos research group, co-authored by Mr. King and funded partly by Canada, found that the terrorists had experienced social exclusion, felt disconnected from their community, had undergone some kind of identity crisis and had a relatively shallow understanding of the Islamic religion.
An increasing part of al-Qaeda’s appeal in the West is its “dangerous, romantic and counter-cultural characteristics,” the paper said, adding it was crucial to de-glamorize al-Qaeda by highlighting its obvious flaws and even satirizing it.
“There’s a sensation-seeking component to it,” said Mr. King, a psychologist. “I mean how cool is it to go with some other guys and have secret messages, try and acquire some illegal materials for a cause that is portrayed as ultimate justice,” he said.
He said terrorist groups are doing a good job of marketing their cause to large numbers on the Internet. Through luck and timing, some are responding to that messaging, although the overall numbers remain relatively small.
“It’s a real combination of factors. They’re meeting the wrong people at the wrong time, there’s nothing else in their life probably that they feel is more important that would keep them back from doing this. And they’re guys that really enjoy doing stuff that’s high intensity.”
National Post
sbell@nationalpost.com
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Homegrown+Canadian+terrorists+they+lured/3442201/story.html#ixzz0xevYtaAE
OTTAWA -- He lived in a quiet townhouse in Ottawa, with a Mazda parked in the driveway. Neighbors could think of nothing unusual about about him.
The terror suspects arrested in Ottawa this morning are being described as ordinary Canadians who were allegedly attracted to al-Qaeda’s message of violence.
The case suggests that four years after the RCMP and CSIS broke up the Toronto 18, Canada is still confronting similar groups of extremists who support al-Qaeda.
This “homegrown Islamist extremism,” as CSIS refers to it, is Canada’s number one terrorist threat, according to senior intelligence and law enforcement officials.
“Right now we’re seeing a trend around what you would call the homegrown type of terrorism,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud said in a recent interview.
“Young Canadians are being radicalized to an extremist ideology and want to support that ideology with violence,” said A. Comm. Michaud, the head of National Security Criminal Investigations.
Early on Wednesday, the RCMP and Ottawa Police Service broke up an alleged Ottawa terrorist group with suspected affiliations to al-Qaeda. The ringleader had alleged trained in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region.
More details were expected at a news conference on Thursday. The suspects appear to have similar backgrounds to the Toronto 18, young Canadians who plotted attacks in southern Ontario, suggesting homegrown radicalization remains a problem for Canada.
“It’s not diminishing,” said Michael King, a McGill University PhD student who has been researching radicalization. “It seems like it’s either keeping constant or increasing, so I would agree that its’ definitely a big problem.”
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said in an Aug. 9 speech that radicalization and the movement of Canadians to overseas training camps were increasing concerns. “These individuals reject the values on which our country is based, and they must be stopped,” he said.
But it is not a simple task.
Al-Qaeda and its affiliates are ardent propagandists. They use the Internet to promote their dark ideology, which revolves around the belief that there is a Western conspiracy against Islam and that terrorism is justified both to defend the religion and impose it on non-Muslims.
“We don’t have an issue with anybody that has extremist views,” A. Comm. Michaud said. “But it does become criminal when somebody wants to use violence to support those views, so that is one of the threats that we’re seeing more and more.”
Experts and officials said homegrown extremists are now becoming radicalized mostly on the Internet. They may then make their own way to overseas training camps.
At those camps, al-Qaeda and its affiliates are apparently encouraging Western recruits to return to their home countries to carry out attacks. They are not given specific missions or targets but are told to strike when opportunity arises.
“It’s self-radicalization basically and the Internet plays a big part in that process,” A. Comm. Michaud said. “Self-radicalization and then taking the steps that they need in order to join whatever group that they feel they should affiliate with.”
Police and intelligence officers are monitoring Canadians they suspect are training in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. The main concern is that they will return to Canada to conduct terrorist operations.
“That they would go and receive training in terrorist tactics is our first concern,” the assistant commissioner said. “But then the second one is, what do they do once they receive this training?
“To use it overseas against allied countries is one thing. But also if ever they were to come back to Canada, then we find individuals that have that capacity to use those skills on our soil. So that is definitely a major concern.”
Some extremists are candid about their views. Salman Hossain, a self-professed extremist Muslim from Mississauga, Ont., repeatedly posted messages on his website calling for terrorist attacks in Canada. But most are more secretive, using code words to chat about getting “married,” a term for martyred.
Homegrown radicalization became a concern for Canada when Mohamed Jabarah of St. Catharines was arrested in 2002 after he joined al-Qaeda and attempted to bomb the U.S. embassy in Singapore. In 2004, Ottawa-born Momin Khawaja was arrested over his role in a British terror group that plotted attacks around London.
A classified 2007 CSIS study said the causes of radicalization varied but included the influence of family and charismatic spiritual leaders, overseas travel, conversion and anger at the perceived oppression of Muslims.
“Once the radicalization process has begun, individuals start to find diverse ways to develop their extremist beliefs in Canada,” the study says. “They do so through a variety of networks, both real and virtual.
“These individuals appear to be part of Western society,” it adds. “In fact, they appear so Canadian that they are difficult to detect. Such individuals then move on to a series of radical activities, ranging from propaganda and recruiting, to terrorist training and participation in extremist operations.”
A recent report by the Demos research group, co-authored by Mr. King and funded partly by Canada, found that the terrorists had experienced social exclusion, felt disconnected from their community, had undergone some kind of identity crisis and had a relatively shallow understanding of the Islamic religion.
An increasing part of al-Qaeda’s appeal in the West is its “dangerous, romantic and counter-cultural characteristics,” the paper said, adding it was crucial to de-glamorize al-Qaeda by highlighting its obvious flaws and even satirizing it.
“There’s a sensation-seeking component to it,” said Mr. King, a psychologist. “I mean how cool is it to go with some other guys and have secret messages, try and acquire some illegal materials for a cause that is portrayed as ultimate justice,” he said.
He said terrorist groups are doing a good job of marketing their cause to large numbers on the Internet. Through luck and timing, some are responding to that messaging, although the overall numbers remain relatively small.
“It’s a real combination of factors. They’re meeting the wrong people at the wrong time, there’s nothing else in their life probably that they feel is more important that would keep them back from doing this. And they’re guys that really enjoy doing stuff that’s high intensity.”
National Post
sbell@nationalpost.com
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Homegrown+Canadian+terrorists+they+lured/3442201/story.html#ixzz0xevYtaAE
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
TORONTO 18 SAGA IS OVER - GUILTY VERDICTS IN
*** Read and see for yourself by following the link. MS ***
FROM: http://www3.thestar.com/static/toronto18/index.html
FROM: http://www3.thestar.com/static/toronto18/index.html
Saturday, June 19, 2010
TORONTO 18 CASE WITH JURY
*** Just because Fahim & others could not possibly have successfully stormed parliament, lopped off Mr. Harper's head & declare a fantasy Islamic State from the Speaker's Chair - he & his bomb-plot partner, Zakaria WANTED so many people to die (Islamic quote: "Actions are by their intentions") and that is what they should be measured against.
They would have been overjoyed at the prospect of shards of glass flying through the air and cutting down the innocent - at the idea of blood and panic everywhere - at the subsequent harm and damage that would have come to Canada and Canadians - and for that reason alone, they deserve far worse than they will get. MS ***
FROM: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/06/18/final-toronto-18-case-in-hands-of-jury/
Whether the “Toronto 18” would have followed through on their chilling mandate to execute the most devastating act of terrorism ever to occur on Canadian soil — or whether they were simply a ragtag bunch of amateurs enthralled by a big talker, Fahim Ahmad, and a charismatic radical, Zakaria Amara — is a question that will forever hang in the balance as the lengthy case draws to a close.
Certainly, their plot was sufficiently alarming to warrant the country’s largest terrorism prosecution to date, a complex, multi-million-dollar, four-year saga that laid bare the group’s desire to realize what one expert describes as “Canada’s 9/11”: a series of explosions to demolish entire city blocks in the heart of downtown Toronto, and leave a nation shell-shocked.
On Friday, as the jury trying the two remaining suspects retired to decide their fate, star Crown witness Mubin Shaikh was watching, and waiting. For years, he infiltrated the terror cell from the inside and then spent countless hours on the stand, pulling the events apart thread by thread, in a process as cumulatively shocking as it was tedious.
On Saturday, as Mr. Shaikh considers penning a book on the saga and completes a degree in policing intelligence and counterterrorism, he dismissed as “laughable” the idea that the Toronto 18 could have carried out their ambitious plot, which included beheading the Prime Minister and broadcasting victory over public radio.
“Given the lack of know-how, the lack of weapons, the lack of preparation, training, all that stuff, it is not possible that this group could have successfully stormed Parliament and lopped off the Prime Minister’s head,” Mr. Shaikh suggested, speaking inside the Brampton courthouse where Asad Ansari, alleged to be a minor player in the group, and Steven Chand, who faces charges of participating in the terror cell and counselling fraud for its benefit, awaited their final verdict.
“Fahim was a big talker more than he was a doer. That is the reality,” Mr. Shaikh said.
Wesley Wark, a security specialist at the University of Toronto, begs to differ: “The ringleaders were capable and serious and that is all that mattered. Homegrown terrorism is amateur by definition; this does not lessen the threat.” (MS: Which is actually exactly what I said but you know reporters...)
Indeed, Ahmad has been linked to a network of terrorists overseas, including Britain’s Aabid Khan, an avid al-Qaeda supporter who recruited young Muslims and arranged their passage to Pakistan for terrorist training. Ahmad and Khan reportedly met in an online chat room, where they discussed getting paramilitary training for a growing number of recruits through Lashkar-e- Taiba, the group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Yet plans fell through, and Ahmad ultimately joined forces with Amara to begin molding a homegrown terror cell.
CSIS and the RCMP took the threat seriously. Gilles Michaud, the RCMP’s assistant commissioner and head of national security criminal investigations, says at the case’s peak, more than 200 people were assigned to the Toronto 18 probe, with funding and manpower pulled from other units.
Mr. Michaud sees the case as a game-changer, one that demonstrated the legitimate threat of terrorism on Canadian soil. It is not an entreaty for the public to be fearful, he says, but rather to be vigilant.
“It happens in Canada. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and think that there’s no threat in Canada,” Mr. Michaud said.
“We cannot also bury our heads in the sand and say, ‘Well, if there is one, the police and the service will get them.’ To think that way would be careless.”
Though the Toronto 18 moniker has stuck, the group could more accurately be described as the Toronto 11, since charges against seven of the accused were dropped early in the process.
Gavin Cameron, an expert on terrorism and security issues at the University of Calgary, says the group was comprised of “concentric rings” of members, the outer of which were only peripherally involved. He calls the initial 2006 sweep an exercise of due caution.
“It’s not something that is terribly comfortable in terms of what it says about individual liberties, but this is a situation where you really don’t want to have people wandering around who you think may be involved in terrorist activities,” Mr. Cameron said.
As the layers have been peeled back in the courtroom, the public has gained glimpses of a horrific plot fuelled by a group of primarily immature extremists who pulled pranks on one another, sniffed cocaine and smoked pot, and argued with girlfriends in the midst of a terrorist training camp in the dead of winter in Washago, where they simulated combat with paintball guns and staged phony videos of shooting a rifle.
It was in the confines of that camp that Ahmad delivered his now infamous “fall of Rome” speech, in which he called for the defeat of the western world. He began the speech by joking about how hungry he was after two weeks of camping, and how “weird” it would be to shower at home.
“The impression that one occasionally had as the evidence came out was that this actually wasn’t a terribly serious group,” Mr. Cameron noted.
As months passed, however, the plot appeared to pick up steam. The group splintered into two factions, one focused on storming Parliament, the other fixated on bombing Toronto. Amara built a test detonator, a prototype for truck bombs that would target the Toronto Stock Exchange, a CSIS site on Front Street and a military base.
The group also ordered several tonnes of ammonium nitrate through undercover police agent Shaher Elsohemy, and on the date of delivery, as Saad Khalid and Saad Gaya unloaded what they believed was the chemical from a delivery truck, police swept in.
It is difficult to assess what may have happened without police intervention, which curtailed planning at an early stage, Mr. Cameron said, noting the group’s aspirations may have exceeded their abilities.
“If the full attack had gone exactly as intended, I think you would be looking at Canada’s 9/11,” he said. “But whether this was a group that was capable of operationalizing the attack on the scale and with the sophistication that they aspired to do is a completely different question.”
They would have been overjoyed at the prospect of shards of glass flying through the air and cutting down the innocent - at the idea of blood and panic everywhere - at the subsequent harm and damage that would have come to Canada and Canadians - and for that reason alone, they deserve far worse than they will get. MS ***
FROM: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/06/18/final-toronto-18-case-in-hands-of-jury/
Whether the “Toronto 18” would have followed through on their chilling mandate to execute the most devastating act of terrorism ever to occur on Canadian soil — or whether they were simply a ragtag bunch of amateurs enthralled by a big talker, Fahim Ahmad, and a charismatic radical, Zakaria Amara — is a question that will forever hang in the balance as the lengthy case draws to a close.
Certainly, their plot was sufficiently alarming to warrant the country’s largest terrorism prosecution to date, a complex, multi-million-dollar, four-year saga that laid bare the group’s desire to realize what one expert describes as “Canada’s 9/11”: a series of explosions to demolish entire city blocks in the heart of downtown Toronto, and leave a nation shell-shocked.
On Friday, as the jury trying the two remaining suspects retired to decide their fate, star Crown witness Mubin Shaikh was watching, and waiting. For years, he infiltrated the terror cell from the inside and then spent countless hours on the stand, pulling the events apart thread by thread, in a process as cumulatively shocking as it was tedious.
On Saturday, as Mr. Shaikh considers penning a book on the saga and completes a degree in policing intelligence and counterterrorism, he dismissed as “laughable” the idea that the Toronto 18 could have carried out their ambitious plot, which included beheading the Prime Minister and broadcasting victory over public radio.
“Given the lack of know-how, the lack of weapons, the lack of preparation, training, all that stuff, it is not possible that this group could have successfully stormed Parliament and lopped off the Prime Minister’s head,” Mr. Shaikh suggested, speaking inside the Brampton courthouse where Asad Ansari, alleged to be a minor player in the group, and Steven Chand, who faces charges of participating in the terror cell and counselling fraud for its benefit, awaited their final verdict.
“Fahim was a big talker more than he was a doer. That is the reality,” Mr. Shaikh said.
Wesley Wark, a security specialist at the University of Toronto, begs to differ: “The ringleaders were capable and serious and that is all that mattered. Homegrown terrorism is amateur by definition; this does not lessen the threat.” (MS: Which is actually exactly what I said but you know reporters...)
Indeed, Ahmad has been linked to a network of terrorists overseas, including Britain’s Aabid Khan, an avid al-Qaeda supporter who recruited young Muslims and arranged their passage to Pakistan for terrorist training. Ahmad and Khan reportedly met in an online chat room, where they discussed getting paramilitary training for a growing number of recruits through Lashkar-e- Taiba, the group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Yet plans fell through, and Ahmad ultimately joined forces with Amara to begin molding a homegrown terror cell.
CSIS and the RCMP took the threat seriously. Gilles Michaud, the RCMP’s assistant commissioner and head of national security criminal investigations, says at the case’s peak, more than 200 people were assigned to the Toronto 18 probe, with funding and manpower pulled from other units.
Mr. Michaud sees the case as a game-changer, one that demonstrated the legitimate threat of terrorism on Canadian soil. It is not an entreaty for the public to be fearful, he says, but rather to be vigilant.
“It happens in Canada. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and think that there’s no threat in Canada,” Mr. Michaud said.
“We cannot also bury our heads in the sand and say, ‘Well, if there is one, the police and the service will get them.’ To think that way would be careless.”
Though the Toronto 18 moniker has stuck, the group could more accurately be described as the Toronto 11, since charges against seven of the accused were dropped early in the process.
Gavin Cameron, an expert on terrorism and security issues at the University of Calgary, says the group was comprised of “concentric rings” of members, the outer of which were only peripherally involved. He calls the initial 2006 sweep an exercise of due caution.
“It’s not something that is terribly comfortable in terms of what it says about individual liberties, but this is a situation where you really don’t want to have people wandering around who you think may be involved in terrorist activities,” Mr. Cameron said.
As the layers have been peeled back in the courtroom, the public has gained glimpses of a horrific plot fuelled by a group of primarily immature extremists who pulled pranks on one another, sniffed cocaine and smoked pot, and argued with girlfriends in the midst of a terrorist training camp in the dead of winter in Washago, where they simulated combat with paintball guns and staged phony videos of shooting a rifle.
It was in the confines of that camp that Ahmad delivered his now infamous “fall of Rome” speech, in which he called for the defeat of the western world. He began the speech by joking about how hungry he was after two weeks of camping, and how “weird” it would be to shower at home.
“The impression that one occasionally had as the evidence came out was that this actually wasn’t a terribly serious group,” Mr. Cameron noted.
As months passed, however, the plot appeared to pick up steam. The group splintered into two factions, one focused on storming Parliament, the other fixated on bombing Toronto. Amara built a test detonator, a prototype for truck bombs that would target the Toronto Stock Exchange, a CSIS site on Front Street and a military base.
The group also ordered several tonnes of ammonium nitrate through undercover police agent Shaher Elsohemy, and on the date of delivery, as Saad Khalid and Saad Gaya unloaded what they believed was the chemical from a delivery truck, police swept in.
It is difficult to assess what may have happened without police intervention, which curtailed planning at an early stage, Mr. Cameron said, noting the group’s aspirations may have exceeded their abilities.
“If the full attack had gone exactly as intended, I think you would be looking at Canada’s 9/11,” he said. “But whether this was a group that was capable of operationalizing the attack on the scale and with the sophistication that they aspired to do is a completely different question.”
Thursday, June 17, 2010
AIR INDIA - CASCADE OF ERRORS
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100617/national/air_india_inquiry_3
OTTAWA - The inquiry into the 1985 Air India bombing concludes authorities should have known that Flight 182 was a likely terrorist target.
A long-awaited report released today blames a "cascading series of errors" by government, RCMP and CSIS for the failure to prevent the disaster.
Former Supreme Court justice John Major says agencies were not prepared for the threat of terror attacks in 1985 — and holes in the country's security systems still need plugging.
His report calls for ramped-up powers for the national security adviser to oversee communication between agencies and settle disputes.
The bombing killed 329 people, mostly Canadians of Indian origin.
Major spent four years investigating the matter.
OTTAWA - The inquiry into the 1985 Air India bombing concludes authorities should have known that Flight 182 was a likely terrorist target.
A long-awaited report released today blames a "cascading series of errors" by government, RCMP and CSIS for the failure to prevent the disaster.
Former Supreme Court justice John Major says agencies were not prepared for the threat of terror attacks in 1985 — and holes in the country's security systems still need plugging.
His report calls for ramped-up powers for the national security adviser to oversee communication between agencies and settle disputes.
The bombing killed 329 people, mostly Canadians of Indian origin.
Major spent four years investigating the matter.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
TORONTO 18 TRIAL - CROWN CLOSING ARGUMENTS
FROM: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/06/09/toronto-18.html
Closing arguments from the Crown were heard in a Brampton, Ont., courtroom on Wednesday for the last two men accused of plotting attacks on Parliament and other Canadian sites.
Steven Chand, 29, and Asad Ansari, 25, are both charged with knowingly participating in a terrorist group that media and authorities have dubbed the Toronto 18.
Chand is also charged with counselling to commit fraud over $5,000 for the benefit of a terrorist group.
Speaking in Ontario Supreme Court, Crown attorney Croft Michaelson said evidence presented in court over the past few months proves a terrorist group existed and that the two men were actively involved in it.
He pointed to the accused's presence at a camp in Washago, Ont., in December 2005, which the Crown alleges was organized to recruit members to the group.
Croft alleges the men discussed what Canadian sites would be good to bomb and proposed targets like nuclear stations and Parliament.
He told the jury the men had weapons and ammunition and that one member of the group even built a detonator.
The Crown reminded the jury that to convict the men, they have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that they are guilty of the charges against them but that doesn't mean the Crown has to prove the case with absolute certainty.
During the trial, Ansari testified in his own defence, saying he was not an active participant in the group and was not aware of any plans to bomb high-profile targets in Toronto and Ottawa.
His lawyers have argued that what he had to say should be given more weight than any of the other testimony or evidence presented.
Closing arguments from the Crown were heard in a Brampton, Ont., courtroom on Wednesday for the last two men accused of plotting attacks on Parliament and other Canadian sites.
Steven Chand, 29, and Asad Ansari, 25, are both charged with knowingly participating in a terrorist group that media and authorities have dubbed the Toronto 18.
Chand is also charged with counselling to commit fraud over $5,000 for the benefit of a terrorist group.
Speaking in Ontario Supreme Court, Crown attorney Croft Michaelson said evidence presented in court over the past few months proves a terrorist group existed and that the two men were actively involved in it.
He pointed to the accused's presence at a camp in Washago, Ont., in December 2005, which the Crown alleges was organized to recruit members to the group.
Croft alleges the men discussed what Canadian sites would be good to bomb and proposed targets like nuclear stations and Parliament.
He told the jury the men had weapons and ammunition and that one member of the group even built a detonator.
The Crown reminded the jury that to convict the men, they have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that they are guilty of the charges against them but that doesn't mean the Crown has to prove the case with absolute certainty.
During the trial, Ansari testified in his own defence, saying he was not an active participant in the group and was not aware of any plans to bomb high-profile targets in Toronto and Ottawa.
His lawyers have argued that what he had to say should be given more weight than any of the other testimony or evidence presented.
Friday, May 28, 2010
TORONTO 18 SCARED OF JIHAD TALK
FROM: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=3080523
The final witness testifying in the "Toronto 18" terrorism case said he was "scared of the jihad talk" when he met with ringleader Fahim Ahmad to discuss ways of fraudulently raising money for the group.
Thomas Stella, a defence witness and longtime friend of Steven Chand, one of the final two facing charges in the high-profile case, told the jury he wanted nothing to do with the group after Mr. Chand introduced him to Ahmad and Mubin Shaikh, an undercover Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent, on two occasions in March 2006.
"I just didn't want to deal with them," said Mr. Stella, who described Ahmad as "nuts" after hearing his jihad philosophy.
Mr. Stella testified that he and Mr. Chand became friends while working at a telemarketing company in 1997.
Mr. Chand, 29, is on trial and accused of participating in the "Toronto 18" terrorist group that allegedly operated between 2005 and 2006 and planned to detonate truck bombs in downtown Toronto and behead the prime minister.
He also faces a charge of counselling someone to commit fraud over $5,000 for the benefit of a terrorist group.
Earlier this month, Ahmad pleaded guilty to terrorism charges.
Throughout yesterday's proceedings, Mr. Chand sat silently at the back of the courtroom, his shoulder-length black hair pulled back in a bun. He did not take the stand in his own defence.
Mr. Stella, 28, told the court that in 2005, his primary source of income was credit card fraud, an activity that resulted in a conviction the following year.
He said Mr. Chand discussed with him in early 2006 the possibility of obtaining "profiles" -- detailed personal information about unsuspecting private citizens -- from Ahmad for the purpose of committing identity theft to raise money for the group.
The jury heard a CSIS wiretap intercept in which Mr. Stella tells Ahmad, Mr. Shaikh and Mr. Chand how stolen personal information could be used to obtain bank loans of between $10,000 and $25,000. He also boasted about being able to "create" people by using the stolen personal information of dead people to obtain a SIN number.
"In this wonderful country you just need a SIN number to be a person," Mr. Stella is heard telling the group.
Mr. Chand's lawyer attempted to paint his client as a simple bystander during the meeting.
"Did Steven have any role to play at this first meeting?" Michael Moon asked.
"No," replied Mr. Stella. Mr. Moon hinted that the two friends intended to defraud Ahmad by using the personal information he supplied to take out loans, all the while telling Ahmad that the scheme didn't work.
When asked if Mr. Chand was to receive any proceeds resulting from the identity thefts and bank loans, Mr. Stella replied: "I guess."
The final witness testifying in the "Toronto 18" terrorism case said he was "scared of the jihad talk" when he met with ringleader Fahim Ahmad to discuss ways of fraudulently raising money for the group.
Thomas Stella, a defence witness and longtime friend of Steven Chand, one of the final two facing charges in the high-profile case, told the jury he wanted nothing to do with the group after Mr. Chand introduced him to Ahmad and Mubin Shaikh, an undercover Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent, on two occasions in March 2006.
"I just didn't want to deal with them," said Mr. Stella, who described Ahmad as "nuts" after hearing his jihad philosophy.
Mr. Stella testified that he and Mr. Chand became friends while working at a telemarketing company in 1997.
Mr. Chand, 29, is on trial and accused of participating in the "Toronto 18" terrorist group that allegedly operated between 2005 and 2006 and planned to detonate truck bombs in downtown Toronto and behead the prime minister.
He also faces a charge of counselling someone to commit fraud over $5,000 for the benefit of a terrorist group.
Earlier this month, Ahmad pleaded guilty to terrorism charges.
Throughout yesterday's proceedings, Mr. Chand sat silently at the back of the courtroom, his shoulder-length black hair pulled back in a bun. He did not take the stand in his own defence.
Mr. Stella, 28, told the court that in 2005, his primary source of income was credit card fraud, an activity that resulted in a conviction the following year.
He said Mr. Chand discussed with him in early 2006 the possibility of obtaining "profiles" -- detailed personal information about unsuspecting private citizens -- from Ahmad for the purpose of committing identity theft to raise money for the group.
The jury heard a CSIS wiretap intercept in which Mr. Stella tells Ahmad, Mr. Shaikh and Mr. Chand how stolen personal information could be used to obtain bank loans of between $10,000 and $25,000. He also boasted about being able to "create" people by using the stolen personal information of dead people to obtain a SIN number.
"In this wonderful country you just need a SIN number to be a person," Mr. Stella is heard telling the group.
Mr. Chand's lawyer attempted to paint his client as a simple bystander during the meeting.
"Did Steven have any role to play at this first meeting?" Michael Moon asked.
"No," replied Mr. Stella. Mr. Moon hinted that the two friends intended to defraud Ahmad by using the personal information he supplied to take out loans, all the while telling Ahmad that the scheme didn't work.
When asked if Mr. Chand was to receive any proceeds resulting from the identity thefts and bank loans, Mr. Stella replied: "I guess."
Thursday, May 27, 2010
TORONTO 18 - ACCUSED DEDICATED TO JIHAD
FROM: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=3075874
Devastated after his dreams of pursuing university-level computer science came to a crashing halt, accused terrorist Asad Ansari found a darker new purpose in life, the Crown alleged yesterday at his trial in Superior Court.
"You had become dedicated to jihad," Crown attorney Jason Wakely suggested.
"That is not true," responded Mr. Ansari, who has told the court he fell into a deep depression upon learning his parents could not afford to send him to his program of choice at the Unversity of Waterloo. But he maintains he never contemplated turning to terrorism, and was unaware his close friends were developing a homegrown terror cell during the relevant time period in 2005 and 2006.
Mr. Ansari, 25, is one of two remaining accused to be tried in the "Toronto 18" case, which involved an alleged plot to detonate bombs in the city's core and to attack senior politicians in Ottawa.
Ringleader Fahim Ahmad pleaded guilty to terrorism charges last month.
The jury yesterday watched a video from a CD labelled "Good stuff: Islamic videos," which police found in Mr. Ansari's bedroom after his arrest.
In it, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri heaps scorn on the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan-- a mission Mr. Ansari has testified he supported--and urges the Muslim population to seek reform through jihad.
As this would have countered the views Mr. Ansari purported to have at the time, Mr. Wakely noted, "why is it that you saved this video?"
Mr. Ansari said he often sought out controversial material for his own edification.
"If I have that, it doesn't mean I agree with it," he said, calling al-Qaeda's standpoint "completely retarded as an ideology."
The court has heard that during a winter training camp in Washago, Ont., in 2005, Ahmad likened the Toronto 18 to al-Qaeda; Mr. Ansari, who says he was unaware the camp was intended as a terrorist training ground when he attended, denies having heard such a statement, and yesterday called it a humourous concept.
Mr. Wakely challenged Mr. Ansari on the title of the CD --- "Good stuff: Islamic videos" -- containing the al-Zawahiri video and other scenes of violent jihad, including explosions and masked militants firing rocket-propelled grenades.
"This depicts warfare, killing, hatred," Mr. Wakely said. "What's good about this stuff?"
"There's nothing good about this stuff," Mr. Ansari acknowledged, noting he frequently and indiscriminately labelled CDs in that fashion: "It was not an assessment in any way."
The Crown also referred to a document called the "Terrorist Handbook" found in Mr. Ansari's possession at the time of his arrest in June 2006. But defence lawyer John Norris contended this was merely an informational document, "not for actual use."
With the defence case for Mr. Ansari now concluded, lawyer Michael Moon will open his case today for 29-year-old Steven Chand, who stands charged with participation in a terrorist group and counselling to commit fraud over $5,000 in association with that group.
Devastated after his dreams of pursuing university-level computer science came to a crashing halt, accused terrorist Asad Ansari found a darker new purpose in life, the Crown alleged yesterday at his trial in Superior Court.
"You had become dedicated to jihad," Crown attorney Jason Wakely suggested.
"That is not true," responded Mr. Ansari, who has told the court he fell into a deep depression upon learning his parents could not afford to send him to his program of choice at the Unversity of Waterloo. But he maintains he never contemplated turning to terrorism, and was unaware his close friends were developing a homegrown terror cell during the relevant time period in 2005 and 2006.
Mr. Ansari, 25, is one of two remaining accused to be tried in the "Toronto 18" case, which involved an alleged plot to detonate bombs in the city's core and to attack senior politicians in Ottawa.
Ringleader Fahim Ahmad pleaded guilty to terrorism charges last month.
The jury yesterday watched a video from a CD labelled "Good stuff: Islamic videos," which police found in Mr. Ansari's bedroom after his arrest.
In it, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri heaps scorn on the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan-- a mission Mr. Ansari has testified he supported--and urges the Muslim population to seek reform through jihad.
As this would have countered the views Mr. Ansari purported to have at the time, Mr. Wakely noted, "why is it that you saved this video?"
Mr. Ansari said he often sought out controversial material for his own edification.
"If I have that, it doesn't mean I agree with it," he said, calling al-Qaeda's standpoint "completely retarded as an ideology."
The court has heard that during a winter training camp in Washago, Ont., in 2005, Ahmad likened the Toronto 18 to al-Qaeda; Mr. Ansari, who says he was unaware the camp was intended as a terrorist training ground when he attended, denies having heard such a statement, and yesterday called it a humourous concept.
Mr. Wakely challenged Mr. Ansari on the title of the CD --- "Good stuff: Islamic videos" -- containing the al-Zawahiri video and other scenes of violent jihad, including explosions and masked militants firing rocket-propelled grenades.
"This depicts warfare, killing, hatred," Mr. Wakely said. "What's good about this stuff?"
"There's nothing good about this stuff," Mr. Ansari acknowledged, noting he frequently and indiscriminately labelled CDs in that fashion: "It was not an assessment in any way."
The Crown also referred to a document called the "Terrorist Handbook" found in Mr. Ansari's possession at the time of his arrest in June 2006. But defence lawyer John Norris contended this was merely an informational document, "not for actual use."
With the defence case for Mr. Ansari now concluded, lawyer Michael Moon will open his case today for 29-year-old Steven Chand, who stands charged with participation in a terrorist group and counselling to commit fraud over $5,000 in association with that group.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
ASAD ANSARI DID NOT KNOW ABOUT TORONTO 18 PLOT SAYS DEFENCE
*** Like I said, 'no comment'. Yet. MS ***
FROM: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/05/18/asad-ansari-did-not-know-about-toronto-18s-alleged-plot-defence/
One of the remaining two accused in the “Toronto 18″ terrorism prosecution was in the dark about the alleged plot when he he took part in a winter training camp, a Superior Court jury heard today.
Ringleader Fahim Ahmad, who pleaded guilty last week, shared his terrorist ambitions with a select group, defence lawyer John Norris said, but Asad Ansari “was not among the trusted few.”
When he took part in the training camp in Washago, Ont., in December 2005, Mr. Ansari understood it simply to be a winter camping trip, the court heard. The group practiced paintball and shot guns; at one point, Ahmad delivered his now infamous “fall of Rome” speech, in which he called for the defeat of western society.
Mr. Norris, however, contends his client was not present for that speech.
“At no time was he aware of Mr. Ahmad’s terrorist plans or activities,” Mr. Norris told the jury.
Mr. Ansari, 25, and Steven Chand, 29, are the remaining two to be tried in the Toronto 18 case, and the first to be tried before a jury. The defence case continues this afternoon
FROM: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/05/18/asad-ansari-did-not-know-about-toronto-18s-alleged-plot-defence/
One of the remaining two accused in the “Toronto 18″ terrorism prosecution was in the dark about the alleged plot when he he took part in a winter training camp, a Superior Court jury heard today.
Ringleader Fahim Ahmad, who pleaded guilty last week, shared his terrorist ambitions with a select group, defence lawyer John Norris said, but Asad Ansari “was not among the trusted few.”
When he took part in the training camp in Washago, Ont., in December 2005, Mr. Ansari understood it simply to be a winter camping trip, the court heard. The group practiced paintball and shot guns; at one point, Ahmad delivered his now infamous “fall of Rome” speech, in which he called for the defeat of western society.
Mr. Norris, however, contends his client was not present for that speech.
“At no time was he aware of Mr. Ahmad’s terrorist plans or activities,” Mr. Norris told the jury.
Mr. Ansari, 25, and Steven Chand, 29, are the remaining two to be tried in the Toronto 18 case, and the first to be tried before a jury. The defence case continues this afternoon
ASAD ANSARI TESTIFIES IN HIS OWN DEFENCE - TORONTO 18 TRIAL
*** Does anybody honestly think people don't read the news? There are 12 such people deciding this case right now - in addition to the trial by media that has already been long underway. Only the one who was there can truly say what happened as a matter of fact under law.
That and, 'no comment'. :) MS ***
FROM: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/05/18/toornto-18.html#ixzz0oK5Kvh9U
A man charged with aiding the so-called Toronto 18 terrorist cell has told an Ontario court that when he was invited on a winter camping trip by one of the group's leaders, he was unaware he was actually being asked to attend a training camp.
Asad Ansari, 25, is one of the last accused to be tried in the Toronto 18 case. Ansari testified in his own defence in a Brampton, Ont., court Tuesday morning.
He admitted attending the camp for a few days in December 2005 at Washago, Ont. But he said he went only because he was invited by his longtime friend Zakaria Amara.
Amara, one of two confessed leaders of the group, has already pleaded guilty to plotting to set off three one-tonne fertilizer bombs in downtown Toronto and at an unnamed military base to protest Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.
Amara was given a life sentence.
In court, Ansari described himself at the time of al-Qaeda's Sept. 11 attacks against the United States as a typical young Muslim man, suddenly having to look for answers.
On the one hand, Ansari testified, he saw himself as a Canadian who believed in democracy and also believed that the Muslim world could learn a lot from the West.
On the other hand, he said, after Sept. 11 there was a palpable feeling among Muslims the world over that Western societies viewed all Muslims with suspicion. He said he and other young men like him suddenly began to question where they fit into the world.
At one point, after his banker fathered revealed he could not afford to send Ansari to university because he had lost a lot of the family's money in bad investments, Ansari testified that he seriously considered suicide.
In draft suicide notes to his mother, father and younger sister, he made references to "dying for the sake of Allah."
One of the options he considered but quickly discarded was volunteering to fight with the Islamist insurgency in Iraq, he told the court.
Ansari also testified he considered non-political options such as drowning or hanging himself.
Even after leaving thoughts of suicide behind, Ansari said, with his dream of earning a degree in computer science at Waterloo University shattered, he went into a long depression and felt like "a loser."
Ansari and Steven Chand are the last two of the Toronto 18 to be on trial.
Seventeen people alleged to have been members of the group were arrested on June 2, 2006. The 18th arrest followed three weeks later.
That and, 'no comment'. :) MS ***
FROM: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/05/18/toornto-18.html#ixzz0oK5Kvh9U
A man charged with aiding the so-called Toronto 18 terrorist cell has told an Ontario court that when he was invited on a winter camping trip by one of the group's leaders, he was unaware he was actually being asked to attend a training camp.
Asad Ansari, 25, is one of the last accused to be tried in the Toronto 18 case. Ansari testified in his own defence in a Brampton, Ont., court Tuesday morning.
He admitted attending the camp for a few days in December 2005 at Washago, Ont. But he said he went only because he was invited by his longtime friend Zakaria Amara.
Amara, one of two confessed leaders of the group, has already pleaded guilty to plotting to set off three one-tonne fertilizer bombs in downtown Toronto and at an unnamed military base to protest Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.
Amara was given a life sentence.
In court, Ansari described himself at the time of al-Qaeda's Sept. 11 attacks against the United States as a typical young Muslim man, suddenly having to look for answers.
On the one hand, Ansari testified, he saw himself as a Canadian who believed in democracy and also believed that the Muslim world could learn a lot from the West.
On the other hand, he said, after Sept. 11 there was a palpable feeling among Muslims the world over that Western societies viewed all Muslims with suspicion. He said he and other young men like him suddenly began to question where they fit into the world.
At one point, after his banker fathered revealed he could not afford to send Ansari to university because he had lost a lot of the family's money in bad investments, Ansari testified that he seriously considered suicide.
In draft suicide notes to his mother, father and younger sister, he made references to "dying for the sake of Allah."
One of the options he considered but quickly discarded was volunteering to fight with the Islamist insurgency in Iraq, he told the court.
Ansari also testified he considered non-political options such as drowning or hanging himself.
Even after leaving thoughts of suicide behind, Ansari said, with his dream of earning a degree in computer science at Waterloo University shattered, he went into a long depression and felt like "a loser."
Ansari and Steven Chand are the last two of the Toronto 18 to be on trial.
Seventeen people alleged to have been members of the group were arrested on June 2, 2006. The 18th arrest followed three weeks later.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
DECENTRALIZED JIHAD - A MOVING TARGET
*** The Conservative government is not interested in helping to provide a counter narrative and frankly, that makes us less safe. This should not be a partisan issue driven by political ideology but a Canadian issue driven by common sense. MS ***
FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/809560--decentralized-jihad-a-moving-target-in-wake-of-terror-attempts
When a young African man was caught trying to blow up an airliner last December with underwear-borne explosives, the official response was swift, far-reaching and not altogether coherent.
Knee-jerk airport security measures forced Toronto passengers to rub their hands in their pockets, then extend palms up for an explosives test before boarding.
Washington probed why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab did not appear on no-fly lists when his own father had alerted authorities.
And focus turned sharply to Yemen, where the suspect allegedly trained.
Soon after, the Obama administration authorized the first sanctioned killing of an American citizen hiding there — online radical orator Anwar al-Awlaki.
Reaction to this month’s failed bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square has been more nuanced — but may pose more troubling questions.
Pakistan, where suspect Faisal Shahzad allegedly received rudimentary explosives training, was already at the centre of Washington’s counter-terrorism efforts and a vital partner in the war in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The U.S. administration has sent mixed messages — first criticizing and then praising Pakistan’s ability to root out what Obama called Wednesday the “cancer in their midst.”
It is still uncertain what ties Shahzad to the Pakistani wing of the Taliban, the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), but on Tuesday, U.S. drones rained down on the group’s stronghold in North Waziristan, killing 14.
More troubling is that Shahzad himself was unremarkable in many ways — no obvious warnings were missed.
U.S. Gen. David Petraeus suggested last weekend that Shahzad was a “lone wolf” with questionable ties to Pakistan.
The lone wolf scenario is what worries intelligence agencies, because individuals are difficult to detect. Another concern is the prevalence of what have been dubbed “homegrown groups,” such as the so-called case of the Toronto 18 who plotted to bomb Canadian targets in 2006.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director Richard Fadden told Parliament this week that the spy service is tracking more than 200 Canadians for possible terrorist links.
“They are usually second- or third-generation Canadians who are in some ways relatively well-integrated into Canada, economically and socially,” Fadden said.
But the problem with Shahzad’s case is that he doesn’t neatly fit into one category, and looking for clues to combat future threats provides scant material.
Born into privilege in Pakistan, he came to the U.S. a decade ago and attended school both in Washington and Connecticut. Married, with two kids, he liked Red Lobster and Wal-Mart, was on Facebook, and had financial problems.
He does not appear to be tied to any one mosque or extremist imam, which has sometimes been a factor in past cases. Reports say he was inspired by Awlaki’s online lectures, but that there was no direct contact.
His travels to Pakistan may prove important if reports that he had direct support, training and financing from Pakistan’s Taliban are true. This would counter Petraeus’s description of Shahzad as the lone wolf — akin to Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. army major who killed 13 in a November shooting rampage at his Fort Hood base.
But even if ties to Pakistan become an important part of the equation, they cannot be the sole focus, argues Sahebzada Khan, Toronto’s Consul General of Pakistan in Toronto.
“We will not be forced to accept collective guilt,” Khan said in an interview this week.
“Whether he was a lone wolf or linked to some Taliban organization, this was the work of a twisted mind, motivated by the Al Qaeda narrative.”
A belief in that narrative — that the West has launched a war on Islam — may be the only commonality among Shahzad and other terrorism suspects.
And combating that belief cannot be accomplished with drone attacks or making people take off their shoes at the airport. In fact, security experts fear that misguided drone attacks that kill civilians and the profiling of innocent Muslims only feed the narrative.
Since 9/11, analysts have tried to compile the portrait of a local terrorist or, at the very least, detect a pattern among those who target the West in the name of Al Qaeda or its affiliates.
Al Qaeda before 9/11 was in many ways easier to define and track. The organization was based in Afghanistan, and it had a hierarchy, structure and members who pledged allegiance, or declared a bayat, to leader Osama bin Laden.
Today, what’s left of bin Laden’s group is commonly referred to as Al Qaeda Central. Al Qaeda’s ideology, however, has spread to local groups in Yemen, Somalia, North Africa, Iraq and Pakistan, who have expanded their regional wars to adopt bin Laden’s global fight.
In the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and other Western nations, there’s a counterculture protest movement in which, for lack of a better term, jihad becomes cool and Internet chat groups provide fuel for the fire.
Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA case officer in Pakistan in the late 1980s, during the Soviet’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, coined this movement the “blob.”
The author of Leaderless Jihad argues that members come and go and make loose connections, united by the perception that Muslims are being persecuted.
“This is a legal set of activities in a liberal democracy — words are protected by freedom of expression,” Sageman said in an interview this week.
“What keeps it alive usually is government action.”
But when the “blob” is discounted as ineffective and members turn to violence, then comes the dangerous transformation from protestor to terrorist, says Sageman.
Mubin Shaikh, an RCMP police agent who testified as one of the government’s star witnesses against the ring leaders of the Toronto 18 group, says he often hears Muslim youths rage against a war on Islam.
Shaikh knew one of the young Toronto men who travelled to Somalia to fight for the local Al Qaeda-affiliated group and was reportedly killed. He said he was not surprised when a video surfaced that praised Mohammed Elmi Ibrahim, known as “Canlish,” as a martyr and encouraged others to “follow his footsteps.”
“There’s a confluence of factors in these cases,” said Shaikh. “But the feeling that Islam is under attack is how they justify their actions.
“You need to have a counter-narrative.”
FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/809560--decentralized-jihad-a-moving-target-in-wake-of-terror-attempts
When a young African man was caught trying to blow up an airliner last December with underwear-borne explosives, the official response was swift, far-reaching and not altogether coherent.
Knee-jerk airport security measures forced Toronto passengers to rub their hands in their pockets, then extend palms up for an explosives test before boarding.
Washington probed why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab did not appear on no-fly lists when his own father had alerted authorities.
And focus turned sharply to Yemen, where the suspect allegedly trained.
Soon after, the Obama administration authorized the first sanctioned killing of an American citizen hiding there — online radical orator Anwar al-Awlaki.
Reaction to this month’s failed bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square has been more nuanced — but may pose more troubling questions.
Pakistan, where suspect Faisal Shahzad allegedly received rudimentary explosives training, was already at the centre of Washington’s counter-terrorism efforts and a vital partner in the war in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The U.S. administration has sent mixed messages — first criticizing and then praising Pakistan’s ability to root out what Obama called Wednesday the “cancer in their midst.”
It is still uncertain what ties Shahzad to the Pakistani wing of the Taliban, the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), but on Tuesday, U.S. drones rained down on the group’s stronghold in North Waziristan, killing 14.
More troubling is that Shahzad himself was unremarkable in many ways — no obvious warnings were missed.
U.S. Gen. David Petraeus suggested last weekend that Shahzad was a “lone wolf” with questionable ties to Pakistan.
The lone wolf scenario is what worries intelligence agencies, because individuals are difficult to detect. Another concern is the prevalence of what have been dubbed “homegrown groups,” such as the so-called case of the Toronto 18 who plotted to bomb Canadian targets in 2006.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director Richard Fadden told Parliament this week that the spy service is tracking more than 200 Canadians for possible terrorist links.
“They are usually second- or third-generation Canadians who are in some ways relatively well-integrated into Canada, economically and socially,” Fadden said.
But the problem with Shahzad’s case is that he doesn’t neatly fit into one category, and looking for clues to combat future threats provides scant material.
Born into privilege in Pakistan, he came to the U.S. a decade ago and attended school both in Washington and Connecticut. Married, with two kids, he liked Red Lobster and Wal-Mart, was on Facebook, and had financial problems.
He does not appear to be tied to any one mosque or extremist imam, which has sometimes been a factor in past cases. Reports say he was inspired by Awlaki’s online lectures, but that there was no direct contact.
His travels to Pakistan may prove important if reports that he had direct support, training and financing from Pakistan’s Taliban are true. This would counter Petraeus’s description of Shahzad as the lone wolf — akin to Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. army major who killed 13 in a November shooting rampage at his Fort Hood base.
But even if ties to Pakistan become an important part of the equation, they cannot be the sole focus, argues Sahebzada Khan, Toronto’s Consul General of Pakistan in Toronto.
“We will not be forced to accept collective guilt,” Khan said in an interview this week.
“Whether he was a lone wolf or linked to some Taliban organization, this was the work of a twisted mind, motivated by the Al Qaeda narrative.”
A belief in that narrative — that the West has launched a war on Islam — may be the only commonality among Shahzad and other terrorism suspects.
And combating that belief cannot be accomplished with drone attacks or making people take off their shoes at the airport. In fact, security experts fear that misguided drone attacks that kill civilians and the profiling of innocent Muslims only feed the narrative.
Since 9/11, analysts have tried to compile the portrait of a local terrorist or, at the very least, detect a pattern among those who target the West in the name of Al Qaeda or its affiliates.
Al Qaeda before 9/11 was in many ways easier to define and track. The organization was based in Afghanistan, and it had a hierarchy, structure and members who pledged allegiance, or declared a bayat, to leader Osama bin Laden.
Today, what’s left of bin Laden’s group is commonly referred to as Al Qaeda Central. Al Qaeda’s ideology, however, has spread to local groups in Yemen, Somalia, North Africa, Iraq and Pakistan, who have expanded their regional wars to adopt bin Laden’s global fight.
In the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and other Western nations, there’s a counterculture protest movement in which, for lack of a better term, jihad becomes cool and Internet chat groups provide fuel for the fire.
Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA case officer in Pakistan in the late 1980s, during the Soviet’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, coined this movement the “blob.”
The author of Leaderless Jihad argues that members come and go and make loose connections, united by the perception that Muslims are being persecuted.
“This is a legal set of activities in a liberal democracy — words are protected by freedom of expression,” Sageman said in an interview this week.
“What keeps it alive usually is government action.”
But when the “blob” is discounted as ineffective and members turn to violence, then comes the dangerous transformation from protestor to terrorist, says Sageman.
Mubin Shaikh, an RCMP police agent who testified as one of the government’s star witnesses against the ring leaders of the Toronto 18 group, says he often hears Muslim youths rage against a war on Islam.
Shaikh knew one of the young Toronto men who travelled to Somalia to fight for the local Al Qaeda-affiliated group and was reportedly killed. He said he was not surprised when a video surfaced that praised Mohammed Elmi Ibrahim, known as “Canlish,” as a martyr and encouraged others to “follow his footsteps.”
“There’s a confluence of factors in these cases,” said Shaikh. “But the feeling that Islam is under attack is how they justify their actions.
“You need to have a counter-narrative.”
Monday, May 10, 2010
TORONTO 18 RINGLEADER PLEADS GUILTY BEFORE TRIAL ENDS
*** The sentencing by the judge will speak to how serious Canadian law considers these types of actions by its citizens. Terrorism can never be justified and has been condemned by numerous public statements, fatwa's and even a 600 page book on the subject. ***
FROM:
http://www.thestar.com/breakingnews/article/807202--toronto-18-ringleader-pleads-guilty-to-terror-offences?bn=1
Isabel Teotonio Staff reporter
In a surprise about-turn, Fahim Ahmad, the ringleader of the so-called Toronto 18 has pleaded guilty.
The reversal of his plea was revealed Monday morning to jurors in what is a landmark trial — the first terrorism case in Canada to be decided by a jury.
Ahmad, described both as a “time bomb waiting to go off” and a “fantasist,” wanted to attack nuclear stations and storm Parliament, taking politicians hostage until they gave into his demands to pull troops from Afghanistan.
Ahmad’s guilty plea leaves co-accused, Steven Chand and Asad Ansari, as the final members of the alleged terror cell on trial.
“Ahmad’s guilty plea is not a factor to be taken into account,” Justice Fletcher Dawson told the five-woman, seven-man jury.
“You must understand that has no impact on the guilt or innocence of the two men who remain on trial.”
Ahmad was charged with contributing to a terrorist group for the purpose of carrying out an act of terror; importing firearms for a terrorist group, and instructing co-accused to carry out an activity for a terrorist group.
On June 2, 2006, Ahmad and his co-accused were arrested after a lengthy investigation by Canada’s spy agency and the RCMP, which included wiretapped intercepts, car probes and the infiltration of a police informant turned agent.
The Brampton court was told that in August 2005 Ahmad rented a car for two men, who were stopped at the U.S. border trying to re-enter Canada with three loaded semi-automatic guns.
In late November 2005, Ahmad met Mubin Shaikh, an agent assigned by CSIS to cozy up to him. Ahmad, described by Shaikh as a “time bomb waiting to go off,” spoke of his plans to train recruits to attack targets such as military bases and the Pickering power plant.
Ahmad also claimed to have had a weapons cache that included AK47s and M16s, which he had buried in a public park but which were then stolen.
He got the initial phase of his plan underway in late December 2005, when he organized a training camp in the woods near Washago, Ont. Attendees, as young as 15, listened to jihadi lectures and participated in military-style exercises and firearms training, led by Shaikh, who was then working for the RCMP.
A less nefarious picture surfaced when court was told some members had to sleep in a van because of sub-zero temperatures and squealed when a field mouse ran into a tent. And the portrait of a less capable ringleader also emerged when jurors were told Ahmad cut himself chopping wood and nearly set himself ablaze while adding fuel to a campfire.
But Ahmad’s intents would have been clear to most after he delivered an impassioned speech, exhorting attendees by saying, "We're here to kick it off. . . Victory is near . . . Our mission is great, whether we get arrested, tortured or killed. . . Rome has to be defeated."
Hoping to show off how serious they were to potential recruits, local imams and jihadi leaders overseas, they captured their exploits on camera.
Videos, later seized by police, contain Ahmad’s fiery speech and shows them training with a 9-mm handgun and playing paintball war games.
In early February 2006, Ahmad turned his attention to securing a safe house and court was told he drove with Chand, Shaikh and another man to Opasatika, near Kapuskasing. Ahmad said he also planned to use the house for storage of a mass shipment of weapons he claimed to have ordered.
During the trip, a car probe captures Ahmad asking, "Hey, wanna be part of the group that goes up to Parliament, man, cut off some heads?"
When asked what happens there, Ahmad replies, “We go and kill everybody.”
Ahmad also planned to take over the CBC building in Toronto to broadcast the group’s victory after attacking Parliament.
Shaikh agreed with defence counsel that by March 2006, it was evident that Ahmad was a “fantasist,” without the capability to carry out the attacks he spoke of.
After returning from Opasatika, court heard that Ahmad met with Zakaria Amara, whose voice is captured on an intercept saying he has built “the first radio frequency remote control detonator.”
But Ahmad is disappointed that it only works from a distance of about 30 feet and says “So you have to get blown up. . . Might as well sit in the car.”
The following month, Amara broke away from Ahmad, having lost confidence in his leadership, and formed his own group with members from Mississauga. But Ahmad pushed on with his own group, mostly from Scarborough.
Ahmad tried coming up with funds for an arsenal of weapons he claimed to have ordered. He considered asking the group’s members to max out their credit cards, but turned instead to a shady businessman involved in financial schemes.
But Ahmad was unable to recruit him with his talk of violent jihad, which was captured by a car probe: “They’re probably expecting what happened in London . . . Our thing is much, much greater on scale. . . You do it once and make sure they never recover again.”
Ahmad held a second camp to screen potential recruits at the Rockwood Conservation Area. Again he made a video, this time showing masked men, armed with knives.
Following his arrest, police found a 9-mm handgun at his residence that originated from the same Ohio gun shop as the weapons seized at the border in August 2005 and the bullets matched those found at the Washago camp site.
FROM:
http://www.thestar.com/breakingnews/article/807202--toronto-18-ringleader-pleads-guilty-to-terror-offences?bn=1
Isabel Teotonio Staff reporter
In a surprise about-turn, Fahim Ahmad, the ringleader of the so-called Toronto 18 has pleaded guilty.
The reversal of his plea was revealed Monday morning to jurors in what is a landmark trial — the first terrorism case in Canada to be decided by a jury.
Ahmad, described both as a “time bomb waiting to go off” and a “fantasist,” wanted to attack nuclear stations and storm Parliament, taking politicians hostage until they gave into his demands to pull troops from Afghanistan.
Ahmad’s guilty plea leaves co-accused, Steven Chand and Asad Ansari, as the final members of the alleged terror cell on trial.
“Ahmad’s guilty plea is not a factor to be taken into account,” Justice Fletcher Dawson told the five-woman, seven-man jury.
“You must understand that has no impact on the guilt or innocence of the two men who remain on trial.”
Ahmad was charged with contributing to a terrorist group for the purpose of carrying out an act of terror; importing firearms for a terrorist group, and instructing co-accused to carry out an activity for a terrorist group.
On June 2, 2006, Ahmad and his co-accused were arrested after a lengthy investigation by Canada’s spy agency and the RCMP, which included wiretapped intercepts, car probes and the infiltration of a police informant turned agent.
The Brampton court was told that in August 2005 Ahmad rented a car for two men, who were stopped at the U.S. border trying to re-enter Canada with three loaded semi-automatic guns.
In late November 2005, Ahmad met Mubin Shaikh, an agent assigned by CSIS to cozy up to him. Ahmad, described by Shaikh as a “time bomb waiting to go off,” spoke of his plans to train recruits to attack targets such as military bases and the Pickering power plant.
Ahmad also claimed to have had a weapons cache that included AK47s and M16s, which he had buried in a public park but which were then stolen.
He got the initial phase of his plan underway in late December 2005, when he organized a training camp in the woods near Washago, Ont. Attendees, as young as 15, listened to jihadi lectures and participated in military-style exercises and firearms training, led by Shaikh, who was then working for the RCMP.
A less nefarious picture surfaced when court was told some members had to sleep in a van because of sub-zero temperatures and squealed when a field mouse ran into a tent. And the portrait of a less capable ringleader also emerged when jurors were told Ahmad cut himself chopping wood and nearly set himself ablaze while adding fuel to a campfire.
But Ahmad’s intents would have been clear to most after he delivered an impassioned speech, exhorting attendees by saying, "We're here to kick it off. . . Victory is near . . . Our mission is great, whether we get arrested, tortured or killed. . . Rome has to be defeated."
Hoping to show off how serious they were to potential recruits, local imams and jihadi leaders overseas, they captured their exploits on camera.
Videos, later seized by police, contain Ahmad’s fiery speech and shows them training with a 9-mm handgun and playing paintball war games.
In early February 2006, Ahmad turned his attention to securing a safe house and court was told he drove with Chand, Shaikh and another man to Opasatika, near Kapuskasing. Ahmad said he also planned to use the house for storage of a mass shipment of weapons he claimed to have ordered.
During the trip, a car probe captures Ahmad asking, "Hey, wanna be part of the group that goes up to Parliament, man, cut off some heads?"
When asked what happens there, Ahmad replies, “We go and kill everybody.”
Ahmad also planned to take over the CBC building in Toronto to broadcast the group’s victory after attacking Parliament.
Shaikh agreed with defence counsel that by March 2006, it was evident that Ahmad was a “fantasist,” without the capability to carry out the attacks he spoke of.
After returning from Opasatika, court heard that Ahmad met with Zakaria Amara, whose voice is captured on an intercept saying he has built “the first radio frequency remote control detonator.”
But Ahmad is disappointed that it only works from a distance of about 30 feet and says “So you have to get blown up. . . Might as well sit in the car.”
The following month, Amara broke away from Ahmad, having lost confidence in his leadership, and formed his own group with members from Mississauga. But Ahmad pushed on with his own group, mostly from Scarborough.
Ahmad tried coming up with funds for an arsenal of weapons he claimed to have ordered. He considered asking the group’s members to max out their credit cards, but turned instead to a shady businessman involved in financial schemes.
But Ahmad was unable to recruit him with his talk of violent jihad, which was captured by a car probe: “They’re probably expecting what happened in London . . . Our thing is much, much greater on scale. . . You do it once and make sure they never recover again.”
Ahmad held a second camp to screen potential recruits at the Rockwood Conservation Area. Again he made a video, this time showing masked men, armed with knives.
Following his arrest, police found a 9-mm handgun at his residence that originated from the same Ohio gun shop as the weapons seized at the border in August 2005 and the bullets matched those found at the Washago camp site.
TORONTO 18 TERROR TRIAL - ALMOST OVER
Finally, after 1 youth preliminary hearing, 1 adult preliminary hearing (which the Prosecution cancelled), 1 youth trial, 1 abuse of process motion and 1 trial of adults by jury - my testimony is complete.
I will not say anything further on this case until the jury has reached their verdict and the final tally can be made.
I had discontinued this blog in fairness of an unbiased trial and credit does go to the wonderful society in which we live, where secret trials are not our style and anonymous information not our evidence. Canada is indeed, the best place for all of us to be living.
More to follow when the time is right.
I will not say anything further on this case until the jury has reached their verdict and the final tally can be made.
I had discontinued this blog in fairness of an unbiased trial and credit does go to the wonderful society in which we live, where secret trials are not our style and anonymous information not our evidence. Canada is indeed, the best place for all of us to be living.
More to follow when the time is right.
Friday, February 19, 2010
AMIR SAYS TERRORISM ISN'T SPECIAL - TORONTO 18
FROM: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/02/19/amir-attaran-terrorism-isn-t-special.aspx
It’s been a bad week to be a terrorist in Canada. In Quebec, a judge sent Said Namouh to prison for preparing terrorism propaganda and plotting a bombing in Vienna. In Ontario, a judge ruled that Shareef Abdelhaleem, one of the “Toronto 18” found guilty of plotting to bomb prominent buildings in that city, would not escape sentencing just because a police informant egged on his terrorist intentions by offering bomb-making materials.
Namouh was sentenced to life in prison. Abdelhaleem’s sentencing date is being chosen today. Both deserve prison, for a long time.
There is something poignant in these outcomes. Canadians have been sold a bill of goods by spies, shadowy diplomats and pundits, warning that modern-day terrorism changes the rules of the game. Their pitch goes something like this: Terrorism is not like other crimes but is sui generis. Terrorists are monsters. Less personal privacy and more government secrecy will keep us safe. Sometimes torture is OK. Those who criticize are not patriotic.
Most dangerous of all: Terrorists don’t follow rules, so we can’t follow rules either.
How incredibly wrong all this now looks. In getting guilty verdicts against would-be terrorists, the police and prosecutors who pursued Namouh and Abdelhaleem prove that our criminal law rules are better than they are given credit for. Meanwhile, those who operated outside the rules do not have a single guilty verdict to show for their troubles.
Let’s begin with what the Canadian authorities did not do to nab Namouh and Abdelhaleem. They did not listen to their phone calls illegally. They did not detain them without trial. They did not obstruct them from communicating with a lawyer. They did not interrogate them illegally. They did not work hand-in-glove with torturers.
Actually, the police were extremely careful not to do any of these things, lest it spoil their chances to convict and put away their suspects. Instead, they counted on good, old fashioned detective work, such as following leads or paying informants to rat out the criminals. Their wise choice of tactics succeeded in convicting Namouh and Abdelhaleem, but also nabbed Zakaria Amara, the Toronto 18 ringleader, Ali Mohamed Dirie, a gunrunner, and Momin Khawaja, a bomb builder, among others.
In all those cases police played by the rules, and thanks to them, all these would-be terrorists are in prison. They do not threaten us any longer.
Now, compare the police’s enviable successes, against the appalling record of those amateurs who disobeyed the rules. More than anyone else in Canada, the spies of CSIS and the diplomats of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT) trashed the rules. They arranged illegal detentions, collaborated with torturers, spied on lawyers, lied to judges and did other nefarious things.
The result? Not a single conviction.
Just look at the cases of Abousfian Abdelrazik, Abdullah Almalki, Hassan Almrei, Maher Arar, Adil Charkaoui, Ahmad El-Maati, Omar Khadr, Mohammad Mahjoub and Muayyed Nureddin. Not only did the authorities fail to convict any of these men, for any crime whatsoever, let alone terrorism, but they violated their human rights viciously. Those men are walking free today (excepting Khadr, who is in his eighth year of imprisonment awaiting trial), as is entirely correct under the legal presumption of innocence. All the amateurs managed to achieve was to traumatize these men, and ensure that Canadians will have to compensate them many millions of dollars in court-ordered judgments or settlements.
Some may find it surprising that the by-the-book approach of the police has so thoroughly outperformed the more aggressive approach of the spies and diplomats. But there is no reason for surprise. Canada’s criminal justice rules are the fruit of hundreds of years of evolution and refinement in the common law. To be sure the rules are not perfect, but they are time-tested, and therefore reliable anti-terrorism tools. How arrogant and ignorant of CSIS and DFAIT to imagine that they could do better by ignoring that accumulated wisdom, and how shameful that Canada’s courts were sometimes gulled into letting them do so.
The spooks’ and diplomats’ failure — not partial failure, but truly cataclysmic, total failure — to instigate even a single terrorist’s conviction is resounding. They remain amateurs still, and one searches in vain for evidence that failure has taught them how better to discern real from imagined threats. Just look at CSIS’s self-parodying court battle to censor the national archives’ files on, of all people, Tommy Douglas.
It is time to dispel the enchanting and dangerous myth that terrorism is special. Better results are achieved by recognizing that terrorists are just criminals, to be prosecuted under criminal law rules. Much of the cash poured into CSIS and DFAIT for anti-terrorism should be taken away, and given to Canada’s more deserving police forces. Politicians, such as our Prime Minister, who savage opponents for being “soft on terrorism” if they refuse to discard long legal traditions, should be dismissed as dangerous ideologues whose preferences actually make terrorism more likely. For the evidence is strikingly clear that those who break or distort the law never succeed in achieving terrorism convictions, while those who engage in stodgy police and trial work put terrorists behind bars. So who’s being soft on terrorism now?
(MS: Only thing is, CSIS' mandate is not to collect evidence rather, information - which is then passed on to the government. The Toronto 18 case began with efforts by CSIS let us not forget. Only afterwards did the RCMP get involved because their mandate is to collect evidence for public prosecution in open court.)
It’s been a bad week to be a terrorist in Canada. In Quebec, a judge sent Said Namouh to prison for preparing terrorism propaganda and plotting a bombing in Vienna. In Ontario, a judge ruled that Shareef Abdelhaleem, one of the “Toronto 18” found guilty of plotting to bomb prominent buildings in that city, would not escape sentencing just because a police informant egged on his terrorist intentions by offering bomb-making materials.
Namouh was sentenced to life in prison. Abdelhaleem’s sentencing date is being chosen today. Both deserve prison, for a long time.
There is something poignant in these outcomes. Canadians have been sold a bill of goods by spies, shadowy diplomats and pundits, warning that modern-day terrorism changes the rules of the game. Their pitch goes something like this: Terrorism is not like other crimes but is sui generis. Terrorists are monsters. Less personal privacy and more government secrecy will keep us safe. Sometimes torture is OK. Those who criticize are not patriotic.
Most dangerous of all: Terrorists don’t follow rules, so we can’t follow rules either.
How incredibly wrong all this now looks. In getting guilty verdicts against would-be terrorists, the police and prosecutors who pursued Namouh and Abdelhaleem prove that our criminal law rules are better than they are given credit for. Meanwhile, those who operated outside the rules do not have a single guilty verdict to show for their troubles.
Let’s begin with what the Canadian authorities did not do to nab Namouh and Abdelhaleem. They did not listen to their phone calls illegally. They did not detain them without trial. They did not obstruct them from communicating with a lawyer. They did not interrogate them illegally. They did not work hand-in-glove with torturers.
Actually, the police were extremely careful not to do any of these things, lest it spoil their chances to convict and put away their suspects. Instead, they counted on good, old fashioned detective work, such as following leads or paying informants to rat out the criminals. Their wise choice of tactics succeeded in convicting Namouh and Abdelhaleem, but also nabbed Zakaria Amara, the Toronto 18 ringleader, Ali Mohamed Dirie, a gunrunner, and Momin Khawaja, a bomb builder, among others.
In all those cases police played by the rules, and thanks to them, all these would-be terrorists are in prison. They do not threaten us any longer.
Now, compare the police’s enviable successes, against the appalling record of those amateurs who disobeyed the rules. More than anyone else in Canada, the spies of CSIS and the diplomats of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT) trashed the rules. They arranged illegal detentions, collaborated with torturers, spied on lawyers, lied to judges and did other nefarious things.
The result? Not a single conviction.
Just look at the cases of Abousfian Abdelrazik, Abdullah Almalki, Hassan Almrei, Maher Arar, Adil Charkaoui, Ahmad El-Maati, Omar Khadr, Mohammad Mahjoub and Muayyed Nureddin. Not only did the authorities fail to convict any of these men, for any crime whatsoever, let alone terrorism, but they violated their human rights viciously. Those men are walking free today (excepting Khadr, who is in his eighth year of imprisonment awaiting trial), as is entirely correct under the legal presumption of innocence. All the amateurs managed to achieve was to traumatize these men, and ensure that Canadians will have to compensate them many millions of dollars in court-ordered judgments or settlements.
Some may find it surprising that the by-the-book approach of the police has so thoroughly outperformed the more aggressive approach of the spies and diplomats. But there is no reason for surprise. Canada’s criminal justice rules are the fruit of hundreds of years of evolution and refinement in the common law. To be sure the rules are not perfect, but they are time-tested, and therefore reliable anti-terrorism tools. How arrogant and ignorant of CSIS and DFAIT to imagine that they could do better by ignoring that accumulated wisdom, and how shameful that Canada’s courts were sometimes gulled into letting them do so.
The spooks’ and diplomats’ failure — not partial failure, but truly cataclysmic, total failure — to instigate even a single terrorist’s conviction is resounding. They remain amateurs still, and one searches in vain for evidence that failure has taught them how better to discern real from imagined threats. Just look at CSIS’s self-parodying court battle to censor the national archives’ files on, of all people, Tommy Douglas.
It is time to dispel the enchanting and dangerous myth that terrorism is special. Better results are achieved by recognizing that terrorists are just criminals, to be prosecuted under criminal law rules. Much of the cash poured into CSIS and DFAIT for anti-terrorism should be taken away, and given to Canada’s more deserving police forces. Politicians, such as our Prime Minister, who savage opponents for being “soft on terrorism” if they refuse to discard long legal traditions, should be dismissed as dangerous ideologues whose preferences actually make terrorism more likely. For the evidence is strikingly clear that those who break or distort the law never succeed in achieving terrorism convictions, while those who engage in stodgy police and trial work put terrorists behind bars. So who’s being soft on terrorism now?
(MS: Only thing is, CSIS' mandate is not to collect evidence rather, information - which is then passed on to the government. The Toronto 18 case began with efforts by CSIS let us not forget. Only afterwards did the RCMP get involved because their mandate is to collect evidence for public prosecution in open court.)
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