Canadian terrorism probe widens
A Canadian investigation into what authorities say was a massive homegrown conspiracy to bomb Toronto-area buildings is expanding on several fronts. On Friday, Canadian police arrested 17 people — including five teenagers — who authorities allege constituted a domestic terror cell. The group allegedly purchased 3 tons of ammonium nitrate, three times the amount used in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. And more arrests are expected in the coming days, as the investigation expands to at least six countries—including the United States. The 17 suspects arrested over the weekend appeared in a Brampton court for bail hearings yesterday. Ten suspects' hearings were postponed. Intelligence experts say the terror plot may be just the tip of the iceberg.
"It's been a long time coming," says David Harris, former chief of strategic planning for Canada's domestic security agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). "We've allowed ourselves to drift aimlessly toward terrorist infiltration. Now we're seeing homegrown terrorism."
Authorities believe the 17 suspects were plotting to destroy not only the Toronto stock exchange but also the regional headquarters of CSIS itself, which is charged with tracking terrorism. There are eyewitness accounts yet to be confirmed that some of the suspects may have systematically cased the CSIS building over a period of weeks.
"That may say something about the general level of security in this country," says Harris, "and the muscularity of some of the radicalism we are facing." Harris is testifying on Canadian security issues before the House immigration, border security, and claims subcommittee in Washington on Thursday.
It has also been reported that several of the young men charged in the plot expressed militant views and had misguided ideas about the Muslim faith, according to their fellow worshipers, and that they were galvanized by their belief that Canadian Muslims are oppressed and abused. Harris says that this view has been aggressively pushed by the Saudi-funded, Wahhabist-oriented Islamic lobbying groups that have spread stories of discrimination and cited statistical "studies" and anecdotes to demonstrate Canada's "Islamaphobia."
"It's unclear whether such propaganda is aimed at purposely alienating Muslim youth and rendering them vulnerable, consolidating the community for lobbying," says Harris, "or putting on the defensive moderate Muslims and non-Muslims, who might otherwise support vigorous security measures. "Angry young men are the tinderbox," wrote prominent Toronto Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente yesterday, "and Islamism is the match." Many Canadian Muslims see it differently; they believe that it is the government that's trying to scare them into silence. An attorney for one of the men arrested Friday, a 25-year-old restaurant worker, who the government alleges wanted to storm the Canadian parliament and behead the prime minister of Canada and other officials, said the government is engaging in fear-mongering.
"It appears to me that whether you're in Ottawa or Toronto or Canada or Crawford, Texas, or Washington, D.C.," said attorney Gary Batasar, "what is wanting to be instilled in the public is fear." Batasar spoke outside the courthouse yesterday and refuted the charges against his client, Steven Vikash Chand. "There's an allegation apparently that my client personally indicated that he wanted to behead the prime minister of Canada," said Batasar. "It is a serious allegation. My client has said nothing about that."
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