Canada

[Casey]

Police arrest terrorist suspects in Toronto

Updated Sat. Jun. 3 2006 12:15 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff


In a sweeping raid, police arrested about a dozen men in the Toronto area on terrorism-related charges Friday night, the RCMP announced.


Intelligence sources allege the men were part of a terrorist cell, close to carrying out attacks on one or more Canadian targets.


Police seized chemicals used to make explosives and weapons.


"That's the tool of choice for anybody who wants to cause damage," a source who asked not to be named told The Canadian Press.


The suspects are either second-generation Canadians or recently immigrated to Canada with their families.


Sources claimed the men have no connection to al Qaeda, but were allegedly inspired by militant Islamic groups.


The arrests were made in co-operation with the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, Cpl. Michele Paradis, a spokeswoman for the RCMP said in a release.
The operation involved at least four police forces, CSIS and the RCMP.
Undercover officers made the arrests, which were all carried out in the Greater Toronto Area.


"The investigation is ongoing," Paradis said Friday night.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was made aware of the raid but did not comment. A spokesperson said Harper did not want to impede the operation as it unfolds.


The arrested suspects were reportedly being held in a police station in Pickering, a northeast suburb of Toronto.


Heavily-armed police officers kept guard outside the building Friday.
According to The Toronto Star, CSIS has monitored the suspects since 2004, while the RCMP began its investigation last year.


Sources discounted earlier reports that the CN Tower and the city's subway system were allegedly potential targets by the group.


More details about the arrests will be released during a Saturday news conference at 10 a.m. ET.
With files from The Canadian Press
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060602/toronto_arrests_060602/20060602?hub=Canada

[Casey]

Taliban commander threatens Canada for role in Afghanistan

File photo of Canadian troops walking beside their light armoured vehicle in the desert north of Kandahar last month. (Richard Foot/CanWest News Service.)

Mike Blanchfield, CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen
Published: Friday, June 02, 2006

OTTAWA -- An elusive, one-legged Taliban commander has threatened to "wreak vengeance" upon Canadian troops in Afghanistan if they don't withdraw, according to a new translation of a recent interview with the commander by an Arab satellite network.

"America now wants to avoid the heat of battle, so it pushes other countries towards it," Mullah Dadullah is reported to have said in a translation released Thursday by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute.

"Our advice to Canada and Britain is to refrain from defending the American propaganda and from standing by this historic American crime ... Our advice to these countries is to avoid the heat of battle, because we will wreak vengeance upon them, one by one, like we are doing with the Americans."

Dadullah recently conducted the interview with an Al-Jazeera reporter and it initially aired on the Qatar-based network last weekend, but it wasn't until the institute posted an English translation of excerpts of the interview Thursday that the threats against Canada emerged.

It is not the first time that Canada has been threatened directly by al-Qaida or the Taliban. Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden first pointed the finger directly at Canada in 2002 as a target of his terrorist group for its support of the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

A Taliban spokesman has also claimed responsibility for the suicide bomb attack that killed Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry in Kandahar in January.

Dadullah apparently granted the interview to dispel reports that coalition forces had captured him several weeks earlier.

In it, he bragged about controlling much of southwestern Afghanistan and claimed to have 12,000 troops under his command in the area of the country patrolled in part by Canadian troops.

He also claimed to have financial support of several Islamic countries and had contact with insurgents who were fighting American troops in Iraq.

"Our main enemy is the United States. As for Canada and the other countries, we have no historical enmity with them. But if they want to come here as fighting forces, we will view them just as we view the Americans, and we will conduct resistance against them.

"But if they return to where they came from and withdraw their forces from here, we will not view them like the Americans, but as countries which we have nothing to do with."

Dadullah lost a leg fighting the Soviet Union occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and is considered a confidant of the fugitive Taliban leader and founder Mullah Omar, who also lost an eye as a fighter as an anti-Soviet mujahedeen.

Parliament recently voted to extend Canada's participation in Afghanistan to February 2009 and has been asked to take over command of all NATO forces in Afghanistan in 2008.

Canada has 2,300 troops in Afghanistan and currently operates under the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom. That mission is expected to transfer to NATO control, under Canadian command, this summer.

However, U.S. troops are not withdrawing from Afghanistan at that point. They are instead focusing their efforts on the eastern region bordering Pakistan, the location of Taliban training camps and from which the fighters are entering Afghanistan.

Ottawa Citizen

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=00022d18-c51e-4a2f-af73-32d658f44b9d&k=80586

[Vancouver]

Police arrest terrorist suspects in Toronto

Updated Sat. Jun. 3 2006 12:15 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060602/toronto_arrests_060602/20060602?hub=Canada


These might be the people who were mentioned by the FBI in connection with Ehsanul Sadeqee and Syed Ahmed, who were arrested in the States in April.

By all appearances this group was not controlled from Arabia or Pakistan or anywhere -- home-grown. As yet I've seen no reaction from any of the big players abroad. It would nice to know if the Canadian batch were all centred on one mosque in Toronto, but even that doesn't seem especially probable.

[Casey]

Canada Archive, with links to Khadr News

http://afghanistanwar.com/showthread.php?t=40918&page=2&pp=15&highlight=Cana da (http://afghanistanwar.com/showthread.php?t=40918&page=2&pp=15&highlight=Canada)

[Vancouver]

These might be the people who were mentioned by the FBI in connection with Ehsanul Sadeqee and Syed Ahmed, who were arrested in the States in April.
Not quite accurate. Sadeqee or Sadequee was captured in Bangladesh and handed over to the USA. I hear that one of them visited Pakistan looking for "training" of some kind. Anyhow, although there was some contact between them and the Canadians, nothing got very far on the American side.

AFAIK the Canadians used only English in their internet communications.

[Casey]

Killing Canadians 'best way': student
Web posts spark RCMP probe, free speech debate

Stewart Bell, National Post
Published: Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Sergeant Carole Morissette
TORONTO - A Toronto-area man has been posting messages on the Internet supporting attacks against Canadian soldiers on Canadian soil, drawing the attention of RCMP national security investigators.

Police have advised the Bangladeshi-Canadian that he is under investigation for incitement and facilitating terrorism after he repeatedly called the killing of Canadian troops in Canada "legitimate" and "well deserved."

No charges have been laid, but counterterrorism officers are apparently taking it seriously, and the case has set off a debate inside government over where to draw the line between free expression and incitement.

"The promotion of hate and violence has no place in Canadian society, and it is an offence under the Criminal Code," Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Safety, responded when shown a sample of the postings. "Our government carefully balances the right to freedom of expression with our duty to protect Canadians from harm."

Alarm bells about the online writings went off last September after German authorities arrested three Islamic militants accused of planning to bomb the Ramstein Air Base and Frankfurt International Airport.

That same day, Salman Hossain posted several messages about the plot on the comment board of a Toronto-based Internet site where he is a frequent contributor.

Although Mr. Hossain claimed in one of his communications with the National Post that he made the comments in a private online chat room, the messages can easily be viewed by anyone using a simple Google search.

"I hope the German brothers were gonna blow up US-German bases in their country. We should do that here in Canada as well. Kill as many western soldiers as well so that they think twice before entering foreign countries on behalf of their Jew masters," he wrote.

"Any and all Western soldiers getting prepared to enter Muslim nations like Afghanistan or Iraq should be legitimate targets by any and all Islamic militants either in the attacked nations or in the western nations --if there were any planned attacks against Canadian/ American soldiers by 'Muslim militants' in Canadian soil, I'd support it," he added.

"Canadian soldiers in Canadian soil who are training to go to Afghanistan or Iraq are legitimate targets to be killed. … Now it is POSSIBLE AND LEGITIMATE!! ... believe me, if we could have enough of our soldiers killed, then we'd be forced to withdrawn from Afghanistan."

In addition, he singles out Jews, writing: "When do I get to shoot a few Jews down for attempting to blow up dozens of mosques in America right after 9-11 … why f---ing target the Americans when the Jews are better?"

The author of the messages is a Mississauga university student in his mid-twenties who claims to know the infamous Khadr family and several of the men arrested in Toronto in June, 2006, on terrorism conspiracy charges. He confirmed to the National Post that he was the author of the postings but later declined to comment further on the advice of his lawyer. While he writes that he approves of attacking Canadian troops, he also says he would not do so himself.

Despite being visited by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and RCMP and told he was under investigation, Mr. Hossain has continued to post messages approving of attacks on Canadian troops.

Saying anti-war protests "will do sh$$," he describes a "mass casualty" attack on the home-front as "a well considered option" and "the best way to compel western soldiers to get out of Afghanistan/Iraq."

Such an attack "would be fantastic and would get the job done," he writes. "If someone gets the bright idea of committing such a wonderful act, it's NOT my responsibility in any way, shape or form."

He wrote, "I enjoy watching the blood flow from the western troops," and during Defence Minister Peter Mac-Kay's Christmas week visit to Kandahar, he wrote: "I pray that the Taliban kill our Mackay motherf---er."

In other postings, he wishes "a merry 9-11, and I wish y'all many more merry 9-11s"; says "the Jews are literally the most treacherous nation on the face of the Earth"; says "I hate the Jews"; and claims "the filthy Jews carried out 9-11."

He rails at police, saying "you can't charge me for possessing a thought" and writes that he "honestly got a kick outta pissing off the RCMP … HAHAHA … i was laughing my ass off for provoking the RCMP."

The case comes as Canadian security agencies are struggling to deal with extremism among a minority of Muslim Canadians, particularly youths. Intelligence analysts believe much of this radicalization is occurring on the Internet.

"So what we are in the presence of is a ranter, informed by the usual conspiratorial views that are unfortunately part and parcel of extremist Islamist thought -- especially the core anti-Semitic notion of a giant Jewish conspiracy," said Professor Wesley Wark, a Canadian security expert.

But he said while the language is violent and crude, it is probably harmless venting. "On the other hand, there is always a worry that such speech could tip over into action by this person or others of like mind."

The RCMP would not comment on the probe, saying sensitive matters of national security were involved, but spokeswoman Corporal Cathy McCrory said the government was "committed to ensuring the safety and security of citizens and we will not tolerate those that seek to harm Canadians."

Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) does not specifically outlaw incitement of terrorism, although such a measure has been discussed by MPs.

Prof. Work, visiting research professor at the University of Ottawa School of Public and International Affair, said a debate on the topic is needed.

"It's high time we had a proper public airing of the pros and cons of further reforms to the ATA, including an incitement clause, and a public airing of the nature of legal powers needed to ensure prompt and effective monitoring of potentially harmful Internet traffic."

A few days after Mr. Hossain wrote that "we should do" a Ramstein-type plot in Canada, the RCMP contacted him. He spoke to them on Sept. 18 at his lawyer's office.

He later posted messages saying he was under police investigation, but he said that "cheerleading" for Muslim insurgents in Afghanistan "is every Muslim's right."

Although he did not tone down his rhetoric, he did make one change: His comments are now sometimes followed by a disclaimer that says he is not inciting violence but merely "suggesting" scenarios and he is not responsible if they actually happen.

"I don't see how the right to free speech includes deliberate

incitement to violence," said Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University professor and a leading international expert on terrorism, after reading the postings.

"One would think that [Canadian soldiers] are owed more than, 'Well, I don't think we can secure a conviction.' How demoralizing is it for soldiers to find out that people are openly advocating terrorism against them and yet the government who they serve won't do anything about it because it's either too much trouble or there's no guarantee they're going to succeed?"

Prof. Hoffman said the postings remind him of the material that incited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. "Reading those, I was wondering, is there any Western country that would tolerate people posting things talking about staging attacks like this?"

He said that while there was no guarantee a criminal case would succeed, prosecutors might want to go ahead anyway, if only to send a message that "you can't openly advocate the murder of Canadian soldiers.

Four months after he met RCMP officers at his lawyer's office, the Mississauga man continues to make provocative postings. On Jan. 17, he wrote that, "If the Taliban had the capability to attack our troops in our own soil, which I personally hope they do in the future, then these pussies will be dead scared of sending any more troops in2 Afghanistan."

sbell@nationalpost.com

---

BACK STORY

An Internet posting from Oct. 29, 2007, in which Salman Hossain imagines, presumably tongue-in-cheek, how the RCMP would describe him:

WANTED!!! DEAD OR ALIVE … - Considered armed and/or dangerous … may be considering taking a trip to Afghanistan on G-Haad training. If not, possibly wired with explosives threatening to blow up Parliament Hill, and threatening attacks on NATO-National Army bases around the nation or perhaps overseas. He is wanted in connection with the attacks that have killed 70+ troops so far. Please hand him over to relevant authorities otherwise he may blow himself up in your face. If you do see him with perhaps heavy clothing -- PLEASE call your local bomb disposal unit and the SWAT team along with the National Army. Potential future Bin Laden!!! - Height: 5'5" - Weight: 135 lbs - Tastes: Enjoys prayer, perfume and/or women. - Dislikes: Jews, Terrorists, Apes, Pigs (refrains from eating), Mossad, Zionists, Bankers, Moneylenders, anything Israeli in nature, Black op Merceneries [Sic], Media-men, Jewish supremacists, anything Kosher, Synagogues, rabbis and other holy crooks pretending to be Saviours from God, and of course last but not least the F---ING TALMUD. - Ambition:Willing to martyr himself in kamekaze [Sic] attack. - Any physical peculiarities: Has tattoos on his arm claiming "God is Great" in Arabic. - Under investigation for: 1. Inciting hate speech 2. Uttering death threats 3. Facilitating terrorism.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=272528

[Casey]

In al-Qaeda's sights

The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, February 23, 2008

Canadian connections to islamist terror groups Ansar Al-Islam (Supporters of Islam)

The radical Sunni Islamist, para-military terrorist group is composed of Iraqi Kurds, Arabs and others. The group surfaced just before September 2001 as a result of a merger of several Kurdish Sunni groups, and follows the same extremist interpretation of Islam as does al-Qaeda, to which it is closely affiliated.

Its leader, Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad, better known as Mullah Krekar, once proclaimed to a Kurdish newspaper that "as far as Islam is concerned, democracy from beginning to end is heresy."

Ansar is blamed for three attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and has had at least three Canadian members, all from the Toronto area.

In a 2005 briefing to a Senate committee on terrorism, CSIS director Jim Judd noted former Scarborough resident Hassan Farhat and Canadian Saeed Rasoul Sobrhatollah Muhammad, then a 31-year-old Seneca College graduate, were linked to the group. Another brother, Canadian Masoud Rasoul, believed then to be in northern Iraq, also was alleged to be involved with the group, according to the Toronto Star.

The whereabouts of the three men is not known. The men met at at Scarborough's Salaheddin mosque, a relative told the Star.

Hezbollah (Party of God)

An Islamist terrorist organization based in Lebanon that seeks to restore Islam to a position of supremacy in the political, social, and economic life of the Muslim world. Its goals include removing all Western influences from Lebanon and from the Middle East, as well as destroying the state of Israel and liberating all Palestinian territories and Jerusalem from what it sees as Israeli occupation, with no option for any negotiated peace. Hezbollah's ultimate objective is to establish a radical Shia Islamist theocracy in Lebanon. The group, outlawed in Canada since 2002, has also been active in Europe, North and South America, and Africa. A 2003 CSIS report said a procurement network established by Hezbollah in Canada "acquired diverse material for use in the group's armed struggle in the Middle East."

Jamaat al-Fuqra (Community of the Impoverished)

Jamaat al-Fuqra is an elitist fundamental religious group that advocates the purification of the Muslim religion through violence. In 1998, U.S. officials believed the group was behind 11 murders and firebombings in the United States.

In April 2006, three men convicted of plotting terrorist attacks in Toronto were deported after serving 12-year sentences for conspiring to set off simultaneous bombs in a crowded Hindu temple and movie theatre. They were believed to be followers of Jamaat al-Fuqra and were deported to their countries of origin, Trinidad and the Dominican Republic.

Al-Fuqra is led by Pakistani cleric Shaykh Mubarik Ali Gilani, who established the organization in the early 1980s. Gilani now resides in Pakistan, but most Fuqra cells are located in North America and the Caribbean.

In 1991, five al-Fuqra members were arrested at a border crossing in Niagara Falls, New York, after authorities found their plans to attack an Indian cinema and a Hindu temple in Toronto. Three of the five later were convicted.

More recently, according to the private intelligence service Stratfor, police working on the D.C. sniper case tied convicted killer John Allen Muhammed to al-Fuqra. As well, it says, slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was investigating the connection between al-Fuqra and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and was in the process of attempting to interview Gilani when he was abducted and killed.

Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT, Army of the Pure)

The RCMP says some of the Toronto terror suspects arrested in June 2006 are believed to have close ties to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, the most important al-Qaeda proxy in Pakistan. The LeT is the militant wing of the Markaz Da'wa wal-Irshad, a fundamentalist centre for religious learning and social welfare established in the late 1980s. It has targeted both civilians, including prominent politicians, and the Indian security forces, including local police forces, and has become infamous for carrying out massacres of non-Muslims. Attacks on the security forces generally take the form of suicide assaults. In addition to links to al-Qaeda, the LeT also has links with the Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups throughout the Middle East, Chechnya, and the Philippines. Al-Qaeda's close links to the LeT can be traced to their common training in Afghan camps and in the 1980s jihad against the Soviets. bin Laden is reportedly one of the LeT's leading financiers.

signals

- Last February, an online message posted by the al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula called for terrorist strikes against Canada's oil and natural gas facilities to "choke the U.S. economy."

Three western countries were singled out in the call-to-arms -- Canada, followed by Mexico and Venezuela. Would-be attackers were instructed to target oilfields, pipelines, loading platforms and carriers. Experts say the message was intended to rally domestic jihadists.

- In March 2004, a new al-Qaeda manual posted on the Internet called for terrorist attacks against Canadian businessmen, politicians, scientists, soldiers and tourists.

The manual, called The Al-Battar Military Camp, ranked Canadians as the fifth most important "Christian" terrorist targets, behind Americans, Britons, Spaniards and Australians.

The manual is said to be aimed at new al-Qaeda adherents scattered around the world.

- In November 2002, an audio tape purported to be the voice of bin Laden asks "Why did your governments ally themselves with America to attack us in Afghanistan, and I cite in particular Great Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia?"

Some experts believe tape, which was broadcast by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television and addressed to "the peoples of the countries allied to the iniquitous American government," should still be considered a warning that Canada remains in al-Qaeda's crosshairs.

With files from Citizen reporter Andrew Duffy, National Post reporter Stewart Bell, Public Safety Canada's "Currently listed entities," globalsecurity.org

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/observer/story.html?id=4f3161ad-0573-449c-9682-99f68731d0a0

[Casey]

Secret files against terror suspects revealed
COLIN FREEZE and TU THANH HA AND OMAR EL AKKAD

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

February 23, 2008 at 12:52 AM EST

The case against a group of Canadians sometimes referred to as "the Secret Trial Five" isn't as secret as it used to be.

Ottawa unveiled more specific allegations against the five terrorism suspects yesterday: for example, that one suspect called the satellite phone of al-Qaeda's second-in-command, and that another was in charge of a group of training camp recruits in Afghanistan.

In hundreds of pages of court documents yesterday, Canadian ministers signed new security certificates against alleged members of the al-Qaeda network. In doing so, the government narrowly beat a date imposed by the Supreme Court for the previous certificates to expire.

A Supreme Court ruling last year forced the federal government to relaunch its security certificate power.

Related Articles
Recent

New security certificates issued
Internet Links
Summary of the security intelligence Reports
Hassan Almrei
Adil Charkaoui
Mohamed Harkat
Mahmoud Jaballah
Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub
The controversial measure is intended to be used to jail and deport Canada's most dangerous non-citizens through court proceedings where the defendants are not allowed to hear all of the evidence against them.

The new process will still involve some court hearings the suspects can't attend, but to make the process fairer and more constitutional, the government yesterday appointed 13 "special advocate" lawyers to represent the suspects.

Federal Court judges have already ruled that the five suspects are likely threats who, for the most part, lied in court about their travels and associates. One suspect remains jailed while the rest are under strict house arrest. Fears that the suspects would be tortured abroad continue to stymie efforts to deport them.

Government officials did not say yesterday why they are now revealing more about the allegations against the men. Among the details the government apparently kept up its sleeve for years: 

Syrian Hassan Almrei, accused of document forgery, is alleged to have gained access to a restricted area at Toronto's Pearson Airport in September, 1999. "Almrei and the five individuals appeared to have access cards and codes for a restricted access building on the [Pearson] grounds," the documents state.
Egyptian Mahmoud Jaballah, long alleged to be a communications conduit for terrorist cells involved in the 1998 African embassy bombings, is said to have "communicated closely" with Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda No. 2. The new documents indicate that conversations Mr. Jaballah had in Canada were recorded, including ones in which he referred to Mr. al-Zawahiri as "the father" and dialled his satellite phone.
A Moroccan, Adil Charkaoui, is said to have admitted to CSIS that fellow Montrealer Abderraouf Hannachi — who sent the so-called millennium bomber, Ahmed Ressam, to Afghan training camps — sent him there too. The court documents say that Mr. Charkaoui didn't just attend a terrorist training camp but was also in charge of recruits.An Egyptian who has admitted working for Osama bin Laden in Africa, Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub, was allegedly fingered as a high-level terrorist by another Egyptian security certificate detainee, Mr. Jaballah. "On Nov. 16, 1996, Jaballah disclosed that he and Mahjoub once worked alongside each other 'over there.' And that he [Jaballah] regards Mahjoub as a shrewd and manipulative individual." 
An alleged Algerian sleeper agent, Mohamed Harkat, is said to have been overheard making ominous remarks. "In February, 1998, Harkat stated that he had to keep a 'low profile' as he needed status in Canada. Further Harkat said that as soon as he received his 'status' he would be 'ready,' which the (Crown) concludes meant that Harkat would be prepared to undertake a jihad in support of Islamic terrorism."
The charge sheets make no reference to earlier allegations made by Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo Bay detainee, who was recently revealed to have been interrogated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency using harsh methods.

Compared with the earlier cases, the charge sheets filed yesterday include more references to Canadian Security Intelligence Service spy methods, including telecommunications intercepts.

The government also announced yesterday that a sixth man, who was being held as an alleged Tamil Tiger terrorist, will no longer be subject to a security certificate. "The government of Canada has decided not to reissue a security certificate to [Manickavasagam] Suresh at this point," Mélisa Leclerc, a spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, said in a statement. She said the government is eyeing other legal measures.

Mr. Suresh was arrested in 1995. He brought a landmark case before the Supreme Court that resulted in a ruling that made it harder for Canada to deport immigrants to countries that practice torture.

Last year, Mr. Charkaoui's name was affixed to a Supreme Court ruling that parts of the old security certificate regime violated the Charter of Rights. The court gave the government one year to fix the law. Yesterday was the last working day before the court deadline.

The 13 "special advocates" that the new law created include many veterans of judicial inquiries who've fought government secrecy.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080222.wcertificate0222/BNStory/National/home?cid=al_gam_mostemail

[Casey]

Convicted British terrorist had links to accused in Toronto 18 case: U.K. court documents

Last Updated: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 | 11:02 AM ET
By Bill Gillespie, CBC News

Aabid Khan was convicted in a British court in August of possessing material likely to be used in a terrorist attack. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. (West Yorkshire Police)Evidence submitted at the recent trial of a British man convicted on terrorism charges indicates he had connections to the so-called Toronto 18 group, according to court documents obtained by CBC News.

Ten people are in jail in Ontario awaiting trial, accused of belonging to a group alleged to have plotted terrorist attacks in the province, including a plan to detonate a huge fertilizer bomb in downtown Toronto. The case became known as the Toronto 18 after, in the summer of 2006, 18 Muslim-Canadian suspects were arrested in a series of dramatic police raids in and around Toronto.

Aabid Khan, a 22-year-old from Bradford, England, had information on his laptop computer that suggested he was attempting to form an international terrorist cell to stage attacks in Britain, the United States, Continental Europe and Canada that would rival the impact of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The home base for Khan’s alleged plot was to be Toronto, according to documents prepared for Khan's trial in London.

Khan was convicted on Aug. 17 of possessing material likely to be used in a terrorist attack. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

At the time of his arrest, he possessed a large quantity of acetone, the main ingredient in the homemade bombs used in the July 7, 2005, attacks on London's transit system that killed 56 people. His laptop and 53 stored hard drives contained a virtual library of violent videos advocating jihad, or holy war, and bomb-making manuals.

This is an artist rendition of Aabid Khan alongside a 16-year-old boy who cannot be named for legal reasons appearing at a London court. (Elizabeth Cook/Associated Press/PA)At Khan’s trial at the Blackfriars Crown Court, a jury heard that his contacts eventually grew to include people from Bosnia, Denmark, Bradford, London, the U.S. city of Atlanta — and Canada.

In March 2006, court heard Khan flew to Toronto to meet his North American contacts face to face. Intelligence sources told CBC News that Khan met one of the accused in the Toronto 18 case, Fahim Ahmed, as well as a few of his associates and two U.S. recruits.

Ahmed and nine others are expected to face trial in Toronto in 2009, while charges against seven others in the Toronto 18 group have been dismissed or stayed. One member of the group, a young offender, has been convicted and is awaiting sentencing.

Planned to rent basement apartments in Toronto
In an interview with CBC News, Evan Kohlmann, a U.S. terrorism analyst who advised the prosecution at Khan’s trial, said the British police evidence shows that Khan’s plan was to rent basement apartments in Toronto where his contacts could spend a month or two bonding.

Next they would fly to Pakistan for military training in training camps connected to al-Qaeda. Once the training was completed, they would return to the basement apartments in Toronto and select their targets.

Kohlmann described Khan as an intensely religious internet nerd who began downloading stories from extremist jihadi websites when only 12 years old.

As he grew older, Kahn’s curiosity turned into hatred against the West, Kohlmann said. As early as 2001, he began using a password-protected internet chat room called Clear Guidance to troll for angry young Muslim men willing to join an international terrorism cell.

Evidence found on Khan’s computers reveal that he also found time during his eight-day stay in Toronto for romance. He fell in love with Ahmed’s sister-in-law, 19-year-old Saima Mohamed.

Khan returned to England without Mohamed, but in the weeks that followed, they carried on a passionate long-distance relationship on the internet. In hundreds of pages of internet chat records in the documents obtained by CBC News, the couple speaks of their love for each other and their mutual passion for jihad.

In a handwritten letter shown to Khan at his trial, Mohamed tells Khan she wants to become a suicide commando.

“The more I think about my goal in life, the more vivid my goals become,” she writes. “Whether it is exploding prisons or freeing Muslim prisoners … let it be a martyrdom operation."

British police evidence also indicates that Mohamed offered to help Khan with the rent on the basement apartments.

Mohamed, who lives in Toronto and has spoken publicly in defence of her brother-in-law, declined repeated requests from the CBC for an interview.

But Mohamed's lawyer, Faisal Kutty, stated in a letter sent to CBC News that some of the statements attributed to Mohamed may have been taken out of context.

Kutty insisted his client simply assisted Khan in trying to find a place to stay, and also asserted some of the woman's statements were simply “the naive statements and private expressions of frustration from a youth.

"Saima categorically denies that she any knowledge of or participated in any alleged efforts or attempts to provide 'cover' to him or any of his friends," Kutty wrote.

Plans to train in Pakistan
According to records of his online chats, Khan contacted Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group with connections to al-Qaeda, to arrange military training for some of his contacts. Khan and at least two others went to Pakistan to train, but it's unclear how much time they spent there.

Gradually, however, Khan's grandiose plans began to unravel.

Some of his contacts didn't see the necessity of going to Pakistan for training and questioned why Khan was taking so long to get down to business. Khan didn’t like having his authority challenged and in one e-chat he rails against “these idiot afghanies" and goes on to say that, "Canadians are morons and idiots and a bunch of backstabbers.”

By then, intelligence agencies including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the West Yorkshire Police and Interpol were on to Khan and his co-conspirators.

In fact, CSIS had been monitoring Ahmed’s chat room conversation as far back as 2002. And, in late 2003 or early 2004, when CSIS agents observed Ahmed getting involved with a very persuasive extremist in northern England, CSIS alerted the British police.

On June 2, 2006, the RCMP arrested Ahmed and 16 other people. Four days later, officers from the West Yorkshire Police nabbed Aabid Khan at Manchester International Airport as he stepped off a flight from Pakistan.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/10/22/toronto-trial.html

[Casey]

THE KHAWAJA FILE
From the start, the Mounties knew the investigation into Mohammad Momin Kawaja had to be flawless
Ian MacLeod , Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, October 28, 2008

OTTAWA - The phone rang at the RCMP's national security section in Ottawa late on Friday Feb. 20, 2004.

"We'd like some information," said an officer from London Metropolitan Police. "Do you know who this guy is?"

Mohammad Momin K-H-A-W-A-J-A.

The detective explained Khawaja, 24, arrived that morning at Heathrow's Terminal 3 aboard Air Canada flight 888. He produced a Canadian passport containing three entry stamps to Pakistan, an Ottawa home address and Department of Foreign Affairs identification.

After clearing customs, where he claimed to be on a two-day visit to a cousin, he was greeted by Omar Khyam, 22, and his brother, Shujah Mahmood, 17. Both were under surveillance with about 50 other young Muslims for suspected involvement in an operation centered in Luton, an hour north of London, to supply al-Qaida in Afghanistan with manpower and materiel.

"Does anybody know this guy?" asked the man from Scotland Yard.

Six thousand kilometres away, a supercomputer at the Fort Meade, M.D., headquarters of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) sniffed though the tangle of global telephone calls, faxes, Internet and other electronic data traffic monitored daily for signals intelligence.

It plucked out a suspicious message moving from Pakistan to Britain and an automatic translation scrolled from a printer into the hands of NSA intelligence analysts, according to The Times of London.

Within hours, Britain's most senior terrorist-hunters gathered for an emergency meeting in London. Those present included David Veness, head of special operations at Scotland Yard, and Eliza Manningham-Buller, director-general of the MI5 British Security Service. A sprinkling of officers from the MI6 foreign intelligence service and GCHQ, Britain's version of the NSA in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire also were present, the newspaper reported.

They learned the intercepted message contained instructions to synthesize ammonium nitrate, diesel fuel and possibly aluminum powder into a high explosive.

The message's recipient was Omar Khyam. He'd driven from Heathrow that morning with his brother and the Canadian to his flat at 56 Hencroft St. in Slough, an industrial borough on the western edge of Greater London.

An MI5 bug, planted in the flat as part of the Luton surveillance project code-named Operation Crevice, soon picked up Khawaja's soft, Michael Jackson-like voice.

" . . . so the receiver, what it does basically, gets the signal when you press the button on the transmitter it receives a signal and the output the . . . voltage . . . if you have detonator wires hooked up that will send a charge down the line to whatever you're sending it to."

Not far away, at Thames House, the headquarters of MI5 in London, the intelligence dots were starting to connect at a distressing pace.

An Islamist plot to bomb Britain, likely London, appeared to be nearing a late operational stage. A group of fervent young Muslims, all but one of Pakistani descent and apparently directed from Pakistan, possesses enough explosive material to vaporize a significant piece of the British capital. But one important element appears to be missing - a way to trigger the bomb or bombs.

Now this Canadian arrives with photographs of electronic components and talks of detonator wires.

The Fixer has arrived.

*****

Sgt. Glenn Martindale's cellphone rang just as he pulled into the driveway of his home late that afternoon. His boss, RCMP Insp. Warren Coons, needed him back at Ottawa's A Division. The Brits, explained Coons, were on to something interesting and important.

Other members of the RCMP's Integrated National Security Team (INSET) team for National Capital Region were coming in, too.

An initial background check on Khawaja came up largely blank. There was nothing on him from a criminal or national security perspective.

He is a second-generation Pakistan-Canadian, born in Ottawa to immigrants from Kashmir and living in the their single-family home. He graduated in computer programming from Algonquin College and his Foreign Affairs job is actually a sub-contracted position working on property management software.

His father, Mahmoob, is an academic and author living in Saudi Arabia. The family isn't particularly religious, though Khawaja has been spending more time at his mosque in the recent years.

He also owned three registered and inexpensive semi-automatic rifles, stored under his bed with 640 rounds of highly-lethal 7.62-calibre ammunition.

Tom Quiggin, an analyst on Islamic extremism working on contract for INSET, was shopping the next day when Coons called. It's Saturday, noted Quiggin - this must be serious. Within 24 hours, the British request for information ballooned into a full-scale RCMP national security operation, Project Awaken.

"This thing had gone from, 'Hey, this something we should help out with,' to, 'Oh my God, this is as serious as it's ever going to get," recalls Quiggin.

The investigation had to go well. The RCMP's failures and questionable activities related to other alleged terrorism cases since Sept. 11, 2001 had put the organization, and by extension Canada, under pressure to prove it was capable of discovering, apprehending and imprisoning terrorists.

What's more, Ottawa had just announced a judicial inquiry into the case of Canadian Maher Arar and the RCMP's role in his extraordinary rendition by the U.S. to a Syrian torture chamber.

Coons and Martindale, veteran Mounties, knew Canada's first post-9/11 terrorism prosecution must be flawless.

"Years from now, the way you picked up your phone, the way you wrote notes in your notebook will be microscopically examined," Quiggin recalls Coons telling INSET investigators.

"This thing will be examined by prosecutors, by defence lawyers, by journalists, by academics, by armchair experts, by citizens. Everybody's going to have an opinion on this."

*****

As Coons was calling Quiggin back to the INSET office that Saturday, an MI5 listening device planted in Khyam's vehicle recorded one of several conversations and meetings between him and a man named Mohammad Sidique Khan. The former primary school teaching assistant was believed to be a harmless Muslim radical and their talk gave police the impression Khyam was a fairly senior operative.

Khawaja, meanwhile, arrived back in Canada the next day, Sunday, Feb. 22, unaware of the Mounties watching his every move.

The same day, a hidden MI5 microphone in Jawad Akbar's flat in Uxbridge, on the western edge of Greater London, recorded him talking to Khyam about possible targets, including gas, water and electrical utilities

Their associate, Waheed Mahmood, worked for the British gas company, Transco, and had stolen sensitive CD-ROMs from National Grid, a British utility, detailing the layout of 6,700-kilometres of high-pressure gas pipelines in southeast England.

Akbar also wanted to slaughter the "slags" at The Ministry of Sound, one of London's most popular nightclubs. There was other talk about bombing the Bluewater Shopping Centre in Kent, then Europe's biggest mall.

On Friday, Feb. 27, one week after the initial call from London, the RCMP was granted warrants to monitor Khawaja's private communications and, soon after, to search his bank accounts and his Foreign Affairs computer.

His e-mail account revealed dozens of messages. Several between he and Khyam discussed his progress on building a remote-control detonating device, which he called a "Hi-Fi Digimonster." Many others boasted about his commitment to violent jihad against the West.

Initial excitement over the evidentary find was soon tempered, however, by a sense of unease.

"As the intelligence linkages became clearer - training camps in Pakistan, Internet sites, knowledge of explosives and electronics - oh man, what have we stumbled into here, this is the real thing, and real people are going to get really hurt if this screws up," says Quiggin.

*****

At one anytime, Project Awaken comprised a core group of 15 to 20 RCMP specialists, with additional personnel on surveillance of Khawaja and support duties.

Quiggin's job was to sort through the Islamist elements of the case and put them in context - were these guys really al-Qaida or homegrown self-starters? - to help investigators understand the mindset and to filter and prioritize the information collected.

He also was tasked with getting inside Khawaja's head.

"When you say the word terrorist, a visual image forms in people's minds of some guys who's big and mean and ugly and he beats up puppy dogs." The reality, he says, is most are terrifyingly normal. "Look at the 9/11 guys... married, kids, good educations."

He soon found Khawaja's online blog and words echoing the teachings of the late Sheik Abdullah Azzam, the godfather of armed jihad and mentor to Osama bin Laden.

BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM

It was clear, though, that Khawaja's knowledge of Islam was limited. "He probably got recruited or drawn into the whole system exactly because of his lack of religious knowledge," says Quiggin.

"One of the reasons he's involved in this is grievance, which is typical of these kinds of guys. They genuinely believe in their heart of hearts that there is a major injustice or a grievance out there, real or perceived, and it should be addressed and that perhaps violence is a way of addressing the grievance.

"Those are very political beliefs. There is very little of what you recognize in his writings of a theological discussion. It's all political. It's money, it's territory, it's control."

Still, the more he looked, the more he found a "thoughtful . . . intelligent man." Quiggin eventually spent seven hours sitting in on Khawaja's police interrogation.

"This is a serious guy. He's solid in the sense that he doesn't go off in strange directions, or panic or say stupid things. Those kind of guys are the ones that actually scare you."

A bunch of idiots in their basements with a bottle of CC and an AK who want to overthrow the world, they may do something stupid and get someone killed, but they are not really a threat in any sense of the term."

But, "this is not some guy who woke up some morning and said, 'Hey, this is cool, let's go get involved."

*****

On March 17, police overheard Khyam reveal he and his brother were to leave Britain before the attack on an April 6 flight to Karachi.

Police on both sides of the Atlantic prepared to make their move.

About 1:30 p.m. on Monday, March 29, two RCMP officers arrested Khawaja at his downtown Ottawa office. Another team of heavily armed officers raided the Khawaja family home in Ottawa.

Khawaja remained calm and unruffled as he was charged with two Criminal Code terrorism offences. Months later, federal prosecutors added five more counts.

Hours later, Khyam and four other British co-conspirators were arrested in pre-dawn raids involving 700 police and security service officers. Two others were arrested later. All seven were tried at London's Old Bailey and five are now serving life terms. Two others were acquitted.

On July 7, 2005, Mohammad Sidique Khan, the man who met with Khyam several times and was around Khawaja at least once, re-surfaced as ringleader of the London transit bombers who killed 52 commuters.

Khawaja went on trial in Ottawa this summer. He pleaded not guilty, saying Khyam and the others duped him into believing he was helping the group prepare to join the front lines of the insurgency in Afghanistan, not kill civilians in the British capital.

On Wednesday at 10 a.m., Ontario Superior Court Justice Douglas Rutherford is to hand down his verdicts.

If convicted on all counts, Khawaja, now 29, faces of maximum of three life terms plus an additional 44 years.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=d7d4d876-6de5-47d3-89f5-f0081d0792ca

[Vancouver]

The verdicts are in on M. M. Khawaja: guilty on seven counts.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/10/29/khawaja-verdict.html

[Casey]

Militant group accused of Mumbai attacks has Toronto link

Toronto, Dec 4 (PTI) The Pakistani militant outfit that New Delhi blames for training the gunmen behind last week's Mumbai massacre has been linked to recent terrorist plots in several Western countries including Canada.
Lashkar-e-Taiba runs training camps near the Indo-Pak border and its followers have been accused of planning attacks in Toronto, Britain, Australia and the United States, National Post reported yesterday.

At least five suspects associated with the 'Toronto 18' -- described by police as a homegrown extremist group accused of plotting attack on Parliament Hill in 2006 in Ottawa and detonate truck bombs near the CN Tower in Toronto -- allegedly travelled to Pakistan to train at Lashkar camps, newspaper reported.

Aabid Khan, a British man convicted of terrorism-related charges in London last summer, had hoped to use Toronto as a staging area for sending recruits to Pakistan for "commando training" with Lashkar and another militant group called Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Canada placed the Lashkar-e-Taiba on its list of outlawed terrorist groups in 2003. The government renewed the listing last week following a review.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, the "Army of the Pure," is one of Pakistan's most powerful militant groups. PTI

http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/201764A5CF36BF9F65257515001612E8?OpenDocument

[Vancouver]

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=1019014

[Casey]

Dawson Creek Pipeline Explosion Investigation
Submit a Tip to the RCMP
If you have a tip for investigators, please contact our Tipline at 1-866-994-7473
or fill out the online form below and then click 'Submit'.

Dawson Creek Pipeline Explosion Investigation (http://216.232.87.148/)


UPDATE 1-Canada police ask for public help in bomb probe

By Allan Dowd

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec 3 (Reuters) - It is still not known if a single person or a group of people is behind three October bombings of natural gas facilities in Western Canada, police said on Wednesday.

"It could be one person acting alone. It could be somebody acting within a small group," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Tim Shields said as investigators renewed their plea for the public's help.

Police have identified several "persons of interest" in the probe, but acknowledge some of them are refusing to co-operate. "They know who they are," Shields told reporters in Dawson Creek, British Columbia.

Police believe the saboteur, or saboteurs, lives in the same area of northeastern British Columbia where the three attacks occurred, and believe the motive is a grievance against pipeline owner EnCana Corp (ECA.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Two pipelines and a gas wellhead were damaged in the attacks in October. There have been no injuries in the incidents, but two of the explosions caused small leaks.

Investigators released copies of an angry letter believed linked to the bombings that was mailed to local media and EnCana shortly before the first incident.

They also released photographs of eight people who mailed letters from the same drugstore in Dawson Creek that the suspect note was mailed from on Oct. 7.

The eight were not identified as potential suspects, Shields said police released pictures of them because they do not know their names and some may not know that investigators are interested in talking to them.

University of Alberta sociology researcher Paul Joosse, who has studied radical environmentalists, agrees with the police that the attacker is probably a local resident rather than part of a larger outside group.

But Joosse says one reason police may be having difficulty getting all residents to co-operate is because there is sympathy for the bomber's motives, even if the people disagree with the tactics.

The letter writer expressed anger at the production of "sour gas", natural gas that contains toxic hydrogen sulfide, which is removed at a processing plant near Tomslake, British Columbia, before the gas is shipped to market.

"We will not negotiate with terrorists which you are as you keep on endangering our families with crazy expansion of crazy gas wells in our home lands," read the letter, which demanded EnCana and other producers stop operations and leave.

EnCana also released a statement on Wednesday saying it does not believe the attacks were intended to to kill anyone, but it warned that could happen by accident if the incidents continue.

There were no attacks in November and security at energy facilities has been increased. The RCMP investigation includes members of the country's national anti-terrorism squad.

The RCMP has taken the unusual step of launching a dedicated website, www.dawsoncreekbombings.com, with information they hope will generate tips on who is responsible for the attacks. (Reporting Allan Dowd, editing by Rob Wilson)

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0335119420081203?sp=true

[Casey]

Khawaja sentenced to 10.5 years in prison

From Friday's Globe and Mail
March 12, 2009 at 10:34 PM EDT

An Ontario Superior Court judge has determined that the Canadian bomb builder who yesterday became the first person sentenced under the country's anti-terrorism laws will be a free man by the time he is 40.

Mr. Khawaja, 29, was sentenced for his role in a 2004 British bomb conspiracy to 10 and a half more years in a penitentiary on top of time served, with no possibility of parole for five years.

In meting out that punishment, the judge said the young terrorist remained an enigma. “What is the court to make of the total absence of information about Mohammed Momin Khawaja's attitude, his current thinking … and his future behaviour?” Mr. Justice Douglas Rutherford wrote in a 20-page decision, noting that he had no idea whether the computer programmer was feeling remorse.

Mr. Khawaja has lived the life of a solitary misfit. His e-mails, recovered by police, suggested the Ottawa native sometimes felt he was born to be a terrorist.

Ottawa software developer found guilty on five charges of financing and facilitating terrorism. He was also found guilty of two Criminal Code offences related to building a remote-control device intended to trigger bomb blasts.

“I always wanted to be a soldier, cuz when I was like 5 yrs old me mum and I would read story about Ali radiAllahanhu and how he chopped of the head of [an infidel],” Mr. Khawaja once typed in an e-mail to a prospective bride in Pakistan. The message added: “Shaykh Usama bin laden is, like, the most beloved person to me.”

The e-mail did not enhance the romantic prospects of Mr. Khawaja, who often complained about being alone. “By Grade 3, I was the smelly Paki,” he once told another a friend in another e-mail. “ … In Grade 6, I was promoted, and became the infamous ‘Fatso.' “ A child of Pakistani immigrants, Mr. Khawaja rebelled in his early teens. He shaved half his head, dyed the remaining part blond. This shocked his parents. “We pray five times a day and go to a mosque,” his mother, Azra, wrote to the court, as she pleaded for clemency. Her son's “adventurous and independent streak,” she added, “never gave us any serious trouble.”

Mr. Khawaja's father, Mahboob, is an academic and his university positions allowed him to raise his Canadian children in Muslim countries, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Libya. “Momin Khawaja recalls sirens and U.S. bombing raids [in Tripoli], their mother hiding the children under the dining room table,” court records say.

By Mr. Khawaja's late teens, his family returned to Ottawa. He became a high-school math whiz and, later, got a computer-science degree. After that, he began fixing computers on contract for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs.

After 2001, his hobbies included paint ball, and he became religiously devout and physically fit, capable of bench pressing 350 pounds. He developed a secret life after meeting extremists on the Internet.

“When the [infidel] amreekans invaded Afghanistan that was .. the most painful time in my whole life,” he later explained in an e-mail. He said he wept because “Americans were bombing our muslim bros and sisters.”

During post-9/11 travels to Britain, Mr. Khawaja met men who changed the course of his life.

They included Omar Khyam, a young British-Pakistani radicalized by the Kashmir conflict, and who gave his name to terrorist conspirators known as the Khyam group.

In 2003, Mr. Khawaja joined the British Muslims in Pakistan for paramilitary training, learning how to fire Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

After returning to Canada, he wired money to his British cohorts, and began building a detonator in his family home. When he travelled back to the Britain to discuss its progress, police and spies observed all his interactions with the Khyam group.

Scotland Yard thwarted the bomb plot and Mounties raided the Khawaja home. But while his talk of money transfers and his detonator were dutifully recorded by police, they never picked up any conversation about specific plots to kill Londoners.

Judge Rutherford wrote that Mr. Khawaja was still a young man with certain “redeeming qualities,” and that his British conspirators were “away out in front” in terms of terrorism.

But the judge also pointed out that for all of his international travels, Mr. Khawaja never left the family home. “What did his parents think was going on?” he wrote.

An “array of military-style rifles,” “crates of ammunition,” and a “mini-library of violence and warfare-oriented books,” were recovered in the home in Orleans. Ont.

“It is impossible to think that the other members of the family were oblivious to Momin's…proclivity to participate in violent jihad,” Judge Rutherford wrote.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090312.wkhawajanews0312/BNStory/National/home

[Atlas]

You get more time then that for robbery in NYS

[Casey]

The 'Toronto 18'
The case against Canada's plotters
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 | 11:43 AM ET
By Bill Gillespie CBC News
The case against Zakaria Amara turned out to be a slam dunk.

After more than three years in pre-trial custody, he admitted he wasn't just the video-gaming 20-year-old his supporters claimed he was at the time of his arrest in 2006.

He was, he confessed, the mastermind of a bomb plot that could have killed scores of his fellow Canadians.

When the arrests were made, security was tightened on Parliament Hill and in downtown Toronto. (Canadian Press) The mountain of evidence compiled by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP against Amara, a gas station attendant, was so high, he pleaded guilty in the hopes of getting a reduced sentence.

As reported by the CBC shortly after the arrests, Amara and the other alleged leader of the so-called Toronto 18 — his high school friend Fahim Ahmed — were the focal point of a police surveillance operation that began in November 2005.

That was seven months before the group was busted on June 2, 2006.

Ahmed had caught the attention of CSIS in 2002, when intelligence agents monitoring extremist chat rooms on the internet spotted him talking up jihad with someone in Calgary.

Amara didn't appear on CSIS radar screens until somewhat later.

But by the fall of 2005, intelligence officials had become increasingly concerned that both Amara's and Ahmed's angry talk was about to morph into violent action.

Under surveillance
In a joint operation between CSIS, the RCMP and local Toronto-area police, intelligence agents inserted two police moles into the Toronto 18 group, put Amara under 24-hour visual surveillance and wiretapped the phones of several other group members, while bugging their workplaces and cars and hacking into their internet accounts.

The blanket surveillance was so comprehensive that sometimes it seemed the police were spending more time in Amara's apartment than he was.

For example, in April 2006, police agents surreptitiously entered his apartment and made a copy of his computer hard drive.

Zakaria Amara in an undated photo. (Reuters) When the agents later opened it up, they found pictures of bomb-making chemical containers, an Arabic-language video explaining how to use the explosive RDX and instructions on mixing chemicals.

Two weeks later, on May 3, 2006, they entered the apartment again and found a black binder with the hand-written title "Bomb Making Manual," two green electronic circuit boards and ammunition for a 9-mm pistol.

The next day, Amara took his young wife, Nada, and their baby on an overnight excursion to Niagara Falls.

While the family was sightseeing, police intelligence agents searched their hotel room, where they found videotapes of explosions.

In an agreed statement of facts, Amara admitted to the court that he was guilty of helping form a terrorist group, recruiting members and plotting to kill scores of innocent people by detonating huge fertilizer bombs in front of the CSIS office in downtown Toronto, at the Toronto Stock Exchange and at an unnamed military base somewhere in Ontario.

In a conversation with one of his co-conspirators, Amara dubbed his plot "The Battle of Toronto" and bragged it would make the London subway bombings that killed 57 people and injured 700 look small by comparison.

What is also clear from his admissions in court is that, if not for the intervention of CSIS and the RCMP, it almost certainly would have happened.

Determined and intelligent
The evidence revealed Amara, the fourth member of the Toronto 18 to plead guilty in the past five months, was determined, intelligent and an exceptional organizer.

He learned how to build fertilizer bombs on the internet, built sophisticated cell phone-activated detonators and recruited co-conspirators he could rely on.

Most important, he somehow managed to gets his hands on about $30,000 in cash. That gave him the means to do what most other jihadi wannabes never end up doing — finance a terrorist attack.

But authorities thwarted the scheme, and scored their first court victory when a peripheral member of the group, Nishanthan Yogakrishnan, who was unaware of the bomb plot, was sentenced to two years in jail in September 2008.

He was released the following May, having received credit for time served in pretrial custody.

Amara is facing a possible life sentence, but if his lawyers have struck a deal with Crown prosecutors he could get far less.

The story continues
But the Toronto 18 story isn't over. Five have now pleaded guilty or been convicted and seven have had the charges against them dropped or stayed. But six accused still await trial, including Ahmed and Jamal James.

Saad Khalid, another member of the Toronto 18, pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Sept. 4, 2009 to 14 years in prision. He was credited with having already served seven years and the Crown is going to appeal the term. (Reuters) Court documents obtained by the CBC from the trials of two convicted American associates of the Toronto 18 suggest that Ahmed and James were involved in a terrorist plot that went far beyond Toronto.

Evidence entered at the trials earlier this year in Atlanta of Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Sadequee, reveal that in March 2005 the pair took a Greyhound bus from Atlanta to Toronto to meet with Ahmed, James and several other young Toronto Muslim men.

The U.S. indictments also show that another man — 20-year-old British extremist Aabid Khan — flew in from London.

The group first met in a password-protected chat room called Clearguidance. Transcripts of their internet chats entered as evidence at Sadequee's trial reveal how they stoked each other's outrage at the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

At a Toronto mosque, they discussed attacking an unnamed oil refinery and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta.

But none of them had military training, so they agreed their first step would be to go to Pakistan and spend three months in a training camp run by the Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

They decided to rent two basement apartments in Toronto as a base where they and five to seven other recruits, who were also part of their internet chat group, would join them before travelling to Pakistan.

After they learned how to handle weapons and make bombs, they planned to return to Toronto and choose targets in Canada, the U.S., Britain and continental Europe to attack in what they anticipated would be a spectacular and perhaps coordinated terrorist assault.

The plot eventually fizzled out, but one of the charges against James is that he eventually did go to Pakistan to get military training from a terrorist organization.

Waiting for the conclusion
Four days after the Toronto 18 were busted, Aabid Khan was arrested at Heathrow Airport as he disembarked from a flight from Islamabad.

In August 2008, in London, he was sentenced to 12 years for attempting to incite an act of terrorism. Syed Haris Ahmed and Sadequee were convicted in Atlanta and are facing a maximum 15-year sentence on terrorism conspiracy charges.

It's unclear how much Fahim Ahmed's and Jamal James's connections to convicted terrorists in other countries will factor into their own trials, if at all.

But even after Amara's surprise guilty plea this week, we are still waiting to hear the full story of the Toronto 18.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/10/14/f-vp-gillespie.html

[Casey]

Jihadists target Christians in Canada
By BRIAN LILLEY, Parliamentary Bureau

Last Updated: December 21, 2010 7:03pm

OTTAWA - The federal government says it is taking online threats against Canadian citizens seriously after reports an al-Qaida linked website has targeted up to 100 Canadians who are Arab Christians and have spoken out against radical Islam.

“The Canadian government strongly condemns the threats made against Canadian residents who simply by practising their religion are being targeted by those who would spread their hate and fanaticism,” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told reporters in Winnipeg.

“Threats of this kind against Canadian residents cannot and will not shake our resolve to respect and welcome people regardless of their religious beliefs. The right to practise one's religion free from intimidation is one of the fundamental pillars of a free and open society.”

Names, photos and even phone numbers of the Canadians, mostly Coptic Christians who originally hail from Egypt, have been posted on the Shumukh-al-Islam website. The siteis viewed by security experts as an official voice for the al-Qaida terrorist network and calls for the beheading of Coptic Christians for defaming Islam.

“This is a very grave situation when you have the long arm of al-Qaida providing cellphone numbers and photos for Canadians, apparently to target them for death,” said lawyer and intelligence expert David Harris.

The fact photos and phone numbers accompany the names of those targeted is believed to mean someone inside Canada is providing the information.

The RCMP and CSIS are aware of the threats but the government won't comment further.

“I can't comment on operational matters, but I can tell you that the RCMP and CSIS are very closely involved in this matter,” Toews said. “It's very disconcerting that Canadians would be targeted in this way. But it simply illustrates the fact that Canadians are not immune from terrorism.”

-With files from Jason Halstead

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/12/21/16636711.html