Maybe we should be fighting them in Canada, instead of Iraq, so that "we don't have to fight them at home". Anybody that supports the Iraq war, at this point, is a clown. There should be a political "Clown Free Thread" for discussion of foreign policy, to eliminate the Ten's, Steve's and Shorties. The political clowns have been completely discredited, along with Bush and the Neos. It's well past time for the rest of us to move on; the argument is over.
Canada nabs 17 terror suspects in Toronto By BETH DUFF-BROWN, Associated Press Writer
Canadian police foiled a homegrown terrorist attack by arresting 17 suspects, apparently inspired by al-Qaida, who obtained three times the amount of explosives used in the Oklahoma City bombing, officials said Saturday.
The FBI said the Canadian suspects may have had "limited contact" with two men recently arrested on terrorism charges in Georgia. About 400 regional police and federal agents participated in the arrests Friday and early Saturday.
"These individuals were allegedly intent on committing acts of terrorism against their own country and their own people," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement. "As we have said on many occasions, Canada is not immune to the threat of terrorism."
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested the suspects, ages 43 to 19, on terrorism charges including plotting attacks with explosives on Canadian targets. The suspects were either citizens or residents of Canada and had trained together, police said.
The group had taken steps to acquire three tons of ammonium nitrate and other bomb-making materials — three times the amount used to blow up the Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injured more than 800, said assistant Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner Mike McDonell.
"This group posed a real and serious threat," McDonell said. "It had the capacity and intent to carry out these attacks."
Luc Portelance, assistant director of operations with Canada's spy agency, CSIS, said the suspects "appeared to have become adherents of a violent ideology inspired by al-Qaida" but that investigators have yet to prove a link to the terror network.
Five of the suspects were led in handcuffs Saturday to the Ontario Court of Justice, which was surrounded by snipers and bomb-sniffing dogs. A judge told the men not to communicate with one another and set their first bail hearing for Tuesday.
Tight security required visitors to the court to remove their shoes to pass through three checkpoints guarded by police carrying assault rifles and submachine guns.
FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko, in Washington, D.C., said there may have been a connection between the Canadian suspects and a Georgia Tech student and another American who had traveled to Canada to meet with Islamic extremists to discuss locations for a terrorist strike.
Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, U.S. citizens who grew up in the Atlanta area, were arrested in March.
Officials at the news conference displayed evidence of bomb-making materials — including a red cell phone wired to what appeared to be an explosives detonator inside a black toolbox — a computer hard drive, camouflage uniforms, flashlights and walkie-talkies. They also showed a flimsy white door riddled with bullet holes but refused to say where it was from.
According to a report Saturday in The Toronto Star citing unidentified police sources, the suspects attended a terrorist training camp north of Toronto and had plotted to attack the Canadian spy agency's downtown Toronto office, among other targets in Ontario province. Authorities refused to confirm those reports.
The suspects live in either Toronto, Canada's financial capital and largest city, or the nearby cities of Mississauga or Kingston.
Rocco Galati, lawyer for two suspects from Mississauga, said Ahmad Ghany, 21, is a health sciences graduate from McMaster University in Hamilton. He was born in Canada, the son of a medical doctor who emigrated from Trinidad and Tobago.
Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30, is a computer programmer who emigrated from Egypt 20 years ago with his father, now an engineer with Atomic Energy of Canada, the lawyer said.
The charges came under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act. It was passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 assaults — and after Osama bin-Laden named Canada as one of five "Christian" nations that should be targeted for terror attacks. The other countries, the United States, Britain, Spain and Australia, have all been targeted.
Portelance, of Canada's spy agency, said it was the nation's largest counterterrorism operation since the adoption of the act and that more arrests were possible. |
