RCMP foiled a dozen plots in past two years
JEFF SALLOT AND BRIAN LAGHI
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
theglobeandmail.com
OTTAWA — The RCMP has quietly broken up at least a dozen terrorist groups in the past two years, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.
"We have completed 12 disruptions of national-level terrorist groups across the country," the Mounties say in briefing notes prepared for Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.
Disruptive tactics -- sometimes as simple as letting targets know they are under close surveillance -- are used to prevent a terrorist attack when the police do not have enough evidence to lay criminal charges, the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service say.
Unlike the high-profile arrests and court proceedings resulting from the weekend roundup of terrorist suspects in Southern Ontario, the public rarely learns about these operations, federal security officials say.
The briefing notes, released to The Globe under the Access to Information Act, are part of the transition book prepared by the RCMP for Mr. Day when the Conservatives formed a new government in February.
The material does not provide details of the 12 disruption operations. Nor does it identify the groups or indicate where they were located.
But the RCMP stated that as a result of its projects and investigations, "the threat of terrorist activity in Canada and abroad has been reduced."
Illustrating this reduced threat, the RCMP document says, is "the fact there has not been a border-related national security threat against either the government of Canada or the United States or the general population" since the two countries established Integrated Border Enforcement Teams.
Disruptive tactics can take many forms, including interdiction of persons or matériel at border points, denial of charitable status to front groups, deportation of non-citizens on security grounds, or "defensive actions as a result of threat assessment," CSIS spokeswoman Barbara Campion said. CSIS, the RCMP and other agencies "have a duty to prevent and disrupt terrorist acts . . . before these individuals have the opportunity to carry out their terrorist plans."
Use of disruptive tactics in anti-terrorism cases represents a sea change in the way the RCMP deals with security threats, senior Mounties say. Police officers by inclination and training try to collect evidence that can be used to support a criminal charge and prosecution. But officers are now recognizing that disrupting a plot in its early stages can be a bigger success than making arrests, often after crimes have already been committed.
Disruptive tactics fell out of favour with the RCMP as a result of Mountie security-service scandals in the 1970s. Mounties then sometimes broke the law to disrupt groups, such as the now infamous case of the burning of a barn in rural Quebec to prevent the building from being used as a meeting place by Quebec separatists and the U.S. Black Panthers.
The RCMP briefing book for Mr. Day describes the terrorist threat most often as an international phenomenon. Police activity is focused on border security and preventing foreign-based groups operating in this country.
There are about 30 to 40 terrorist groups worldwide affiliated with al-Qaeda, "with presence in 60 countries," the briefing notes say.
References to the "homegrown threat" -- the threat the RCMP say was represented by the suspects arrested on the weekend -- are few. But one key paragraph describes the emergence of "Baby al Qaeda" -- the next generation of terrorists "composed of dozens of loosely structured networks . . . [that] undertake operations without central command structures."
A source with access to high-level security briefings said yesterday that the kind of persuasion that takes place between those promoting violence and younger Muslims is a more common occurrence than Canadians think.
"Let me put it this way, before this event, it was more widespread than most people believed," the source said.
The source said one of the chief challenges the government faces is how to prevent early efforts to engage young Muslim men by those who preach a philosophy of hatred, while falling short of promoting criminality. The issue is tricky because government cannot be seen to abridge free speech, but must still dissuade youth from dealing with older individuals acting as recruiters.
"It's been heightened in the minds of those who monitor this that they need to be on top of it," the source said.
Security officials will both have to increase covert efforts by infiltrating such groups and also overtly by dealing with those who preach hatred.
"It's a debate we haven't had," the source said.
Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer said yesterday that Mr. Day has already begun meeting with heads of various multicultural communities and that he also hopes to step up his involvement in community outreach. Mr. Jaffer said the government can work both through the Immigration Department and through Mr. Day's department to try to reach youth.
Meanwhile, Anne McLellan, the public safety minister in the last Liberal government, said she and other senior ministers had been informed by the authorities some time ago that there was a potential threat from a homegrown group in Southern Ontario and thus she was not surprised by the weekend arrests.
With a report from Jane Taber |
