*** 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The Toronto 18 (who became the Toronto 11 after charges were withdrawn against seven) were convicted for plotting to attack civilian targets in Toronto and Ottawa with a view to forcing the withdrawal of Canadian troops from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
Showing posts with label Canada terror case. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada terror case. Show all posts
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
HOMEGROWN THREAT ON THE RISE
*** They have not spoken to a single Muslim leader or even a Muslim expert on terrorism and radicalization - in fact, I think they are plagiarizing from some information that was given to them a couple of years ago (waiting for confirmation) in which I was involved.
On top of that the RCMP is doing its own thing and CSIS is doing its own thing. And how many millions of dollars is this costing? I could devise a program for HALF the cost in HALF the time - and they know it but hey, what would I know? MS ***
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews on Thursday applauded the co-ordinated efforts of police and intelligence forces who say they foiled an Ottawa-based terror plot, but said the incident underscores the burgeoning threat of homegrown terrorism.
"There is a growing concern about radicalization inside Canada — so that is, homegrown terrorism," said Toews. "That is a phenomena that we have seen in many Western democracies, and it's a relatively new phenomena that we must be very vigilant about."
Toews called on Canadians to stand up against terrorist threats, suggesting leaders from various communities in Canada should approach the government if they have information that threatens public safety. (MS: Sure, just as long as you give the community credit for helping you instead of taking the information and then leaving the community to suffer accusations of "you're not doing enough")
The co-ordination between the RCMP, CSIS and various police groups during the yearlong Project Samossa investigation, which resulted in the arrests this week of two Ottawa men and another from St. Thomas, Ont., was quickly praised by experts, who said the arrests were a success and proved the lessons learned in the intelligence community from Air India.
However, former CSIS senior manager Michel Juneau-Katsuya said Canada has a lot of work to do when it comes to building diplomacy around the world.
"Is it on the grand scale, the big picture, a great success? It's a temporary success," he said.
"If we don't go to the root cause of terrorism, we're still going to have more guys who are going to be pissed at us, and will succeed one day," said Juneau-Katsuya, a criminal-intelligence expert for 30 years.
Canada also lacks a national counter-radicalization strategy, although a senior RCMP officer says discussions are underway.
"It's not in place yet," Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud, head of National Security Criminal Investigations, said recently, before this weeks arrests in Ottawa.
"Right now it's very piecemeal. Ourselves, we're doing something, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is doing something. But it's broader than that." (MS: Yes, they have ignored everything I have conveyed to them on this subject. They think they know best - typical RCMP attitude)
Interviews with officials and de-classified documents indicate that counter-terrorism agencies have been fighting a behind-the-scenes battle to identify Canadians who are radicalizing and, in some cases, taking steps to intervene.
When investigators suspect a Canadian is preparing to travel overseas for training or to join a terrorist group such as Al-Shabab in Somalia, for example, they have been conducting interventions. That may involve visiting the person or, if they are young, breaking the news to their parents.
The government has also been funding academic research on radicalization and studying what other countries are doing.
But Mubin Shaikh, who worked as an undercover CSIS and RCMP agent during the Toronto 18 terror investigation, said if a national strategy is in the works, the Muslim community had not been informed.
"Exactly who are they developing this in conjunction with? There is not a single Muslim leader that they have spoken with (that I know of)," he said. "If the program does not have legitimacy with the masses, it will be worthless and useless."
Meanwhile, a declassified CSIS report released under the Access to Information Act concludes there is no single "best strategy" for fighting radicalization and that regardless of efforts to stop them, some will still become terrorists.
The three men arrested are accused of conspiring with others in Iran, Afghanistan, Dubai and Pakistan to build improvised explosive devices for attacks in Canada and to raise money to fund IED attacks on Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
While officials were mum on potential targets, Juneau-Katsuya said al-Qaida "likes to hit icons," such as the Parliament buildings.
An RCMP spokesman said the accused had IED parts, including more than 50 circuit boards that could be used to remotely detonate bombs, but wouldn't say if the group had explosives.
The investigation was intended to prevent the use of the IEDs against coalition forces and Canadian troops, said RCMP Chief Supt. Serge Therriault.
Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh, 30, and Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, from Ottawa, are charged, along with Khurram Syed Sher, 28, of London, Ont.
The charges allege they conspired with three other people — identified as James Lara, Rizgar Alizadeh and Zakaria Mamosta — and other "persons unknown" to facilitate "terrorist activity" between February 2008 and Aug. 24 of this year.
Alizadeh also faces charges in relation to making an explosive device and funding a terrorist group.
With files from Ottawa Citizen
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Homegrown+terror+threat+rise+Toews/3446864/story.html#ixzz0xmF2v1HB
On top of that the RCMP is doing its own thing and CSIS is doing its own thing. And how many millions of dollars is this costing? I could devise a program for HALF the cost in HALF the time - and they know it but hey, what would I know? MS ***
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews on Thursday applauded the co-ordinated efforts of police and intelligence forces who say they foiled an Ottawa-based terror plot, but said the incident underscores the burgeoning threat of homegrown terrorism.
"There is a growing concern about radicalization inside Canada — so that is, homegrown terrorism," said Toews. "That is a phenomena that we have seen in many Western democracies, and it's a relatively new phenomena that we must be very vigilant about."
Toews called on Canadians to stand up against terrorist threats, suggesting leaders from various communities in Canada should approach the government if they have information that threatens public safety. (MS: Sure, just as long as you give the community credit for helping you instead of taking the information and then leaving the community to suffer accusations of "you're not doing enough")
The co-ordination between the RCMP, CSIS and various police groups during the yearlong Project Samossa investigation, which resulted in the arrests this week of two Ottawa men and another from St. Thomas, Ont., was quickly praised by experts, who said the arrests were a success and proved the lessons learned in the intelligence community from Air India.
However, former CSIS senior manager Michel Juneau-Katsuya said Canada has a lot of work to do when it comes to building diplomacy around the world.
"Is it on the grand scale, the big picture, a great success? It's a temporary success," he said.
"If we don't go to the root cause of terrorism, we're still going to have more guys who are going to be pissed at us, and will succeed one day," said Juneau-Katsuya, a criminal-intelligence expert for 30 years.
Canada also lacks a national counter-radicalization strategy, although a senior RCMP officer says discussions are underway.
"It's not in place yet," Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud, head of National Security Criminal Investigations, said recently, before this weeks arrests in Ottawa.
"Right now it's very piecemeal. Ourselves, we're doing something, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is doing something. But it's broader than that." (MS: Yes, they have ignored everything I have conveyed to them on this subject. They think they know best - typical RCMP attitude)
Interviews with officials and de-classified documents indicate that counter-terrorism agencies have been fighting a behind-the-scenes battle to identify Canadians who are radicalizing and, in some cases, taking steps to intervene.
When investigators suspect a Canadian is preparing to travel overseas for training or to join a terrorist group such as Al-Shabab in Somalia, for example, they have been conducting interventions. That may involve visiting the person or, if they are young, breaking the news to their parents.
The government has also been funding academic research on radicalization and studying what other countries are doing.
But Mubin Shaikh, who worked as an undercover CSIS and RCMP agent during the Toronto 18 terror investigation, said if a national strategy is in the works, the Muslim community had not been informed.
"Exactly who are they developing this in conjunction with? There is not a single Muslim leader that they have spoken with (that I know of)," he said. "If the program does not have legitimacy with the masses, it will be worthless and useless."
Meanwhile, a declassified CSIS report released under the Access to Information Act concludes there is no single "best strategy" for fighting radicalization and that regardless of efforts to stop them, some will still become terrorists.
The three men arrested are accused of conspiring with others in Iran, Afghanistan, Dubai and Pakistan to build improvised explosive devices for attacks in Canada and to raise money to fund IED attacks on Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
While officials were mum on potential targets, Juneau-Katsuya said al-Qaida "likes to hit icons," such as the Parliament buildings.
An RCMP spokesman said the accused had IED parts, including more than 50 circuit boards that could be used to remotely detonate bombs, but wouldn't say if the group had explosives.
The investigation was intended to prevent the use of the IEDs against coalition forces and Canadian troops, said RCMP Chief Supt. Serge Therriault.
Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh, 30, and Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, from Ottawa, are charged, along with Khurram Syed Sher, 28, of London, Ont.
The charges allege they conspired with three other people — identified as James Lara, Rizgar Alizadeh and Zakaria Mamosta — and other "persons unknown" to facilitate "terrorist activity" between February 2008 and Aug. 24 of this year.
Alizadeh also faces charges in relation to making an explosive device and funding a terrorist group.
With files from Ottawa Citizen
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Homegrown+terror+threat+rise+Toews/3446864/story.html#ixzz0xmF2v1HB
Monday, July 5, 2010
MINISTER TOEWS ON TORONTO 18 CASE
Jun 23, 2010 20:29 ET
Statement by the Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, in Response to the Convictions of the Final Accused in Project Osage
OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - June 23, 2010) - "Today marks the conclusion to an important chapter in our history - the convictions on terrorism charges of the last of the accused in Project Osage, better known to many Canadians as the Toronto 18 cases. If it wasn't for the timely intervention of law enforcement and security officials, it is entirely possible that the plotters could have been successful and taken many innocent lives.
This case demonstrates that Canada is not immune from terrorist threats. Although we have been successful in disrupting terrorist plots, and convicting terrorists, we are always looking for new ways to strengthen our mutual safety and security. We must continue to remain vigilant.
While the legal process may continue for some of those found guilty, it is appropriate at this time to acknowledge the hard work and successful collaboration of CSIS, the RCMP, the Toronto Police Service, Peel Regional Police and other law enforcement partners, the federal Public Prosecution Service of Canada and the Department of Justice in uncovering the plot, laying charges and bringing strong cases before the courts. It is an example of how effectively different parts of our national security and justice systems work together to protect Canada and all those who live here.
On behalf of the Government of Canada and Canadians, I want to thank all of those who worked to bring Project Osage to successful conclusion."
For more information, please contact
Public Safety Canada
Media Relations
613-991-0657
Statement by the Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, in Response to the Convictions of the Final Accused in Project Osage
OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - June 23, 2010) - "Today marks the conclusion to an important chapter in our history - the convictions on terrorism charges of the last of the accused in Project Osage, better known to many Canadians as the Toronto 18 cases. If it wasn't for the timely intervention of law enforcement and security officials, it is entirely possible that the plotters could have been successful and taken many innocent lives.
This case demonstrates that Canada is not immune from terrorist threats. Although we have been successful in disrupting terrorist plots, and convicting terrorists, we are always looking for new ways to strengthen our mutual safety and security. We must continue to remain vigilant.
While the legal process may continue for some of those found guilty, it is appropriate at this time to acknowledge the hard work and successful collaboration of CSIS, the RCMP, the Toronto Police Service, Peel Regional Police and other law enforcement partners, the federal Public Prosecution Service of Canada and the Department of Justice in uncovering the plot, laying charges and bringing strong cases before the courts. It is an example of how effectively different parts of our national security and justice systems work together to protect Canada and all those who live here.
On behalf of the Government of Canada and Canadians, I want to thank all of those who worked to bring Project Osage to successful conclusion."
For more information, please contact
Public Safety Canada
Media Relations
613-991-0657
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.”
Friday, June 18, 2010
TORONTO 18 CASE - INTERATIONAL LINKS
*** Too bad that 4 years had to pass - and for a false narrative to have taken hold by armchair pundits who pronounced verdicts even before the trial began! NOW - 4 years later - the public will start to hear more of what they should have been given the first time: the truth. MS ***
FROM: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/06/18/toronto-18-jury.html
Toronto 18 details emerge as jury sequestered
What the jury didn't get to hear about Fahim Ahmad
A jury in Brampton, Ont., has started to deliberate in the latest trial for those accused in the Toronto 18 extremist plot case.
The jurors were sequestered Friday after the judge finished instructing them in the case presented against the two accused, Steven Chand and Asad Ansari. Both were charged with participating in a terrorist group, and Chand faces a further charge of counselling to commit fraud over $5,000 for the benefit of a terrorist group.
Until the moment the jury went out, a sweeping publication ban had prevented media from reporting any details of the case other than what was said in the courtroom in this trial. That included any details of past convictions and evidence in previous Toronto 18 trials.
One of the names that came up repeatedly in past trials was that of the self-acknowledged leader of the group, Fahim Ahmad. Admad was to have been tried along with Chand and Ansari on charges of participating in a terrorist group, instructing people to carry out activities for a terrorist group and a weapons offence.
But on May 10, he made a surprise about-turn. In the middle of his trial on terrorism charges he abruptly reversed himself and pleaded guilty. What the five-woman, seven-man jury had heard about Ahmad to that point was hair-raising enough.
Untold details of plot
In hundreds of hours of taped phone intercepts and secretly recorded conversations with police mole Mubin Sheik, Ahmad spoke enthusiastically of building an arsenal of high-powered weapons, including AK-47s and M-16s, and of attacking Canadian targets such as the Pickering nuclear power plant in Ontario and storming Parliament in Ottawa to "cut off some heads."
What the jury and the Canadian public didn't hear about was the story of Ahmad's ties to international terrorism.
Before turning his attention to building a Canadian al-Qaeda style terrorist cell, Ahmad was plotting acts of terrorism with alienated young Muslim men like himself in the United States, the United Kingdom and perhaps beyond.
One of those young men was Aabid Khan, who was an al-Qaeda supporter and recruiter living in Bradford, England. According to British security analyst Sajan Gohel, Khan was no foot solider, he was a plotter who put together terrorism cells on the internet.
Khan was arrested by British anti-terrorism police at Manchester International Airport on June 6, 2006, just four days after the RCMP busted the Toronto 18.
Khan was returning from one of his frequent trips to Pakistan. On his laptop computer and on 53 harddrives found at his home, police discovered what a British prosecutor later referred to as a library of violent Jihadi videos and Islamist propaganda tracts. Amongst the videos police discovered was an edited two-minute feature shot at a Canadian winter indoctrination and military training camp organized by Ahmad and by Toronto 18 co-leader Zakaria Amara at Washego, Ont.
U.K. police also found hundreds of hours of saved chats between Khan, Ahmad and other members of the Toronto 18.
Met in a chat room
Ahmad first met Kahn in 2003 in an internet chat room called Clear Guidance. The site was frequented by angry, young Muslim men — and by 2004 Ahmad had posted over 700 messages.
Other Clear Guidance members included Yanous Tsouli. The internet moniker Tsouli chose to give himself was Irhabi 007. Irhabi is Arabic for terrorist. The reference to 007 is an allusion to the fictional, over-sexed British secret agent James Bond.
Tsouli was the son of a Moroccan diplomat living in east London. Tsouli was an internet genius with close ties to al-Qaeda in Iraq. When a London SWAT team burst into his apartment on Oct. 21, 2005, to arrest him he was building a new website called YouBombit.com. The website was a do-it-yourself guide for wannabe terrorists that featured bomb-making recipes and instructions on how to make suicide vests.
Amongst the videos Tsouli planned to put up on the website were what the FBI alleges were surveillance videos of possible targets in Washington, D.C. The videos were shot by two of Fahim Ahmad's associates from Atlanta.
Ehasnul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed were also Clear Guidance regulars. In March 2005, Sadequee and Haris Ahmed travelled to Toronto to visit Fahim Ahmad and his growing band of recruits.
Over the next week, the young men talked about potential targets and the need to get paramilitary training in Pakistan. In transcripts of internet chats introduced at his trial at Blackfriars Court in London, England, Aaabid Khan told Fahim Ahmad he could arrange to get them paramilitary training with Lashkar Tayiba, the group behind the Mumbai attacks.
Aabid Khan was also in Toronto that week. At his trial, Khan insisted he had come to marry Fahim Ahmad's sister-in-law, a 19-year-old woman named Saima Mohamed, not to plot terrorism. Saima was also committed to the Jihadist cause.
In transcripts of internet chats included in the evidence at Khan's trial, Saima Mohamed tells him of her desire to become a suicide commando. In a written letter she tells him: "The more I think about my goal in life, the more vivid my goals become. Whether it's exploding prisons or freeing Muslim prisoners … Let it be a martyrdom operation."
She tells Khan that although her sister Mariyam disapproves of her ambition to become a martyr, Fahim has given her his approval. Mohamed was never arrested. She declined several interview requests from CBC News but in a letter from her lawyer Faizel Kutty, he stated that she does not espouse violent views. He also reminded the CBC being young can be a difficult and confusing period.
Aabid Khan and Fahim Ahmad's plan was to rent basements apartments in Toronto where their most-committed internet recruits could live for a month and bond before leaving for Pakistan to get paramilitary training with Lashkar.
After training they would return to Toronto, choose targets and then disperse to stage spectacular acts of terrorism in at least four countries. But as Ahmad was out searching for cheap apartments to rent, the plan began to fall apart.
Grew impatient
Ahmad began to grow impatient with Khan, who wanted to move slowly. Ahmad also had trouble getting his hands on the $5,000 he calculated he would need to go to Pakistan. After splitting with Khan, Ahmad and his friend Zakaria Amara turned their attention to Canada and building an al-Qaeda type cell in Toronto.
In August 2008, Aabid Khan was convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
In 2007, another Clear Guidance regular, Mersad Bektasavic, received a 15 year, four-month sentence from a Bosnian court for plotting an attack in Europe. When Bektasevic was arrested, police found a suicide vest and 18 kilograms of factory-made explosive in his apartment.
In June 2009, American Syed Haris Ahmed was found guilty of material support for terrorism in the U.S. and sentenced to 12 years. Later that year, his friend Ehsenul Mohamed Sadequee was found guilty on four terrorism charges and sentenced to 17 years followed by 30 years of supervision. In the indictments of both men, Fahim Ahmad is named as a co-conspirator.
Fahim Ahmad has pleaded guilty to four charges. He is facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. As a result of his guilty plea, the jury is no longer involved in Ahmad's case. He will be sentenced in Federal Court in Brampton, Ont., by Justice Fletcher Dawson later this summer.
FROM: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/06/18/toronto-18-jury.html
Toronto 18 details emerge as jury sequestered
What the jury didn't get to hear about Fahim Ahmad
A jury in Brampton, Ont., has started to deliberate in the latest trial for those accused in the Toronto 18 extremist plot case.
The jurors were sequestered Friday after the judge finished instructing them in the case presented against the two accused, Steven Chand and Asad Ansari. Both were charged with participating in a terrorist group, and Chand faces a further charge of counselling to commit fraud over $5,000 for the benefit of a terrorist group.
Until the moment the jury went out, a sweeping publication ban had prevented media from reporting any details of the case other than what was said in the courtroom in this trial. That included any details of past convictions and evidence in previous Toronto 18 trials.
One of the names that came up repeatedly in past trials was that of the self-acknowledged leader of the group, Fahim Ahmad. Admad was to have been tried along with Chand and Ansari on charges of participating in a terrorist group, instructing people to carry out activities for a terrorist group and a weapons offence.
But on May 10, he made a surprise about-turn. In the middle of his trial on terrorism charges he abruptly reversed himself and pleaded guilty. What the five-woman, seven-man jury had heard about Ahmad to that point was hair-raising enough.
Untold details of plot
In hundreds of hours of taped phone intercepts and secretly recorded conversations with police mole Mubin Sheik, Ahmad spoke enthusiastically of building an arsenal of high-powered weapons, including AK-47s and M-16s, and of attacking Canadian targets such as the Pickering nuclear power plant in Ontario and storming Parliament in Ottawa to "cut off some heads."
What the jury and the Canadian public didn't hear about was the story of Ahmad's ties to international terrorism.
Before turning his attention to building a Canadian al-Qaeda style terrorist cell, Ahmad was plotting acts of terrorism with alienated young Muslim men like himself in the United States, the United Kingdom and perhaps beyond.
One of those young men was Aabid Khan, who was an al-Qaeda supporter and recruiter living in Bradford, England. According to British security analyst Sajan Gohel, Khan was no foot solider, he was a plotter who put together terrorism cells on the internet.
Khan was arrested by British anti-terrorism police at Manchester International Airport on June 6, 2006, just four days after the RCMP busted the Toronto 18.
Khan was returning from one of his frequent trips to Pakistan. On his laptop computer and on 53 harddrives found at his home, police discovered what a British prosecutor later referred to as a library of violent Jihadi videos and Islamist propaganda tracts. Amongst the videos police discovered was an edited two-minute feature shot at a Canadian winter indoctrination and military training camp organized by Ahmad and by Toronto 18 co-leader Zakaria Amara at Washego, Ont.
U.K. police also found hundreds of hours of saved chats between Khan, Ahmad and other members of the Toronto 18.
Met in a chat room
Ahmad first met Kahn in 2003 in an internet chat room called Clear Guidance. The site was frequented by angry, young Muslim men — and by 2004 Ahmad had posted over 700 messages.
Other Clear Guidance members included Yanous Tsouli. The internet moniker Tsouli chose to give himself was Irhabi 007. Irhabi is Arabic for terrorist. The reference to 007 is an allusion to the fictional, over-sexed British secret agent James Bond.
Tsouli was the son of a Moroccan diplomat living in east London. Tsouli was an internet genius with close ties to al-Qaeda in Iraq. When a London SWAT team burst into his apartment on Oct. 21, 2005, to arrest him he was building a new website called YouBombit.com. The website was a do-it-yourself guide for wannabe terrorists that featured bomb-making recipes and instructions on how to make suicide vests.
Amongst the videos Tsouli planned to put up on the website were what the FBI alleges were surveillance videos of possible targets in Washington, D.C. The videos were shot by two of Fahim Ahmad's associates from Atlanta.
Ehasnul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed were also Clear Guidance regulars. In March 2005, Sadequee and Haris Ahmed travelled to Toronto to visit Fahim Ahmad and his growing band of recruits.
Over the next week, the young men talked about potential targets and the need to get paramilitary training in Pakistan. In transcripts of internet chats introduced at his trial at Blackfriars Court in London, England, Aaabid Khan told Fahim Ahmad he could arrange to get them paramilitary training with Lashkar Tayiba, the group behind the Mumbai attacks.
Aabid Khan was also in Toronto that week. At his trial, Khan insisted he had come to marry Fahim Ahmad's sister-in-law, a 19-year-old woman named Saima Mohamed, not to plot terrorism. Saima was also committed to the Jihadist cause.
In transcripts of internet chats included in the evidence at Khan's trial, Saima Mohamed tells him of her desire to become a suicide commando. In a written letter she tells him: "The more I think about my goal in life, the more vivid my goals become. Whether it's exploding prisons or freeing Muslim prisoners … Let it be a martyrdom operation."
She tells Khan that although her sister Mariyam disapproves of her ambition to become a martyr, Fahim has given her his approval. Mohamed was never arrested. She declined several interview requests from CBC News but in a letter from her lawyer Faizel Kutty, he stated that she does not espouse violent views. He also reminded the CBC being young can be a difficult and confusing period.
Aabid Khan and Fahim Ahmad's plan was to rent basements apartments in Toronto where their most-committed internet recruits could live for a month and bond before leaving for Pakistan to get paramilitary training with Lashkar.
After training they would return to Toronto, choose targets and then disperse to stage spectacular acts of terrorism in at least four countries. But as Ahmad was out searching for cheap apartments to rent, the plan began to fall apart.
Grew impatient
Ahmad began to grow impatient with Khan, who wanted to move slowly. Ahmad also had trouble getting his hands on the $5,000 he calculated he would need to go to Pakistan. After splitting with Khan, Ahmad and his friend Zakaria Amara turned their attention to Canada and building an al-Qaeda type cell in Toronto.
In August 2008, Aabid Khan was convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
In 2007, another Clear Guidance regular, Mersad Bektasavic, received a 15 year, four-month sentence from a Bosnian court for plotting an attack in Europe. When Bektasevic was arrested, police found a suicide vest and 18 kilograms of factory-made explosive in his apartment.
In June 2009, American Syed Haris Ahmed was found guilty of material support for terrorism in the U.S. and sentenced to 12 years. Later that year, his friend Ehsenul Mohamed Sadequee was found guilty on four terrorism charges and sentenced to 17 years followed by 30 years of supervision. In the indictments of both men, Fahim Ahmad is named as a co-conspirator.
Fahim Ahmad has pleaded guilty to four charges. He is facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. As a result of his guilty plea, the jury is no longer involved in Ahmad's case. He will be sentenced in Federal Court in Brampton, Ont., by Justice Fletcher Dawson later this summer.
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