Assorted Babble: Major Arrests in Canada in Terrorism Investigation

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Major Arrests in Canada in Terrorism Investigation

Update: Please scroll down for the updates and other blogs that are reporting on the latest. When I published this post early this morning, it was still breaking with 12 men arrested. Total arrested so far are 17 (12 adults and 5 teens)....
An updated News Conference is planned for this morning. Suspected terrorists, 12 men were arrested in Canada yesterday and are in custody now. The reports are they were planning terror attacks including using explosives in their plot against targets in and around Toronto. Canadian police say it was a major "al Qeada-inspired" bomb plot.

Via Ottawa Citizen

TORONTO - Police tactical teams raided several locations in Greater Toronto yesterday as part of what is being described as Canada's largest terrorism investigation since the Air India bombings.
The RCMP has scheduled a news conference for today to announce it has made at least nine arrests under the Anti-terrorism Act, and was still seeking one suspect. Hundreds of officers were involved, and the arrests went without incident.

More Breaking News to come.....

A Fox News excerpt: The arrests could be tied to investigations of two men skulking around a downtown Toronto subway stop with video cameras on May 23. Police have been seeking the public's assistance after passengers reported the men were filming the Keele subway stop and beneath subway car seats.
The Toronto Star reported Saturday that Canadian youths in their teens and 20s, upset at the treatment of Muslims worldwide, were among those arrested.
The newspaper said they had trained at a camp north of Toronto and had plotted to attack CSIS's downtown office near the CN Tower, among other targets.

This is great news!!!

UPDATE: Toronto Star and Fox News reports are now... 17 Canadian residents (12 adults and 5 teens) arrested.

Fox News excerpt: "This group took steps to acquire three tons of ammonium nitrate and other components necessary to create explosive devices," said assistant Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner Mike McDonell said.
McDonell said that is three times the amount used to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
The arrests were made Friday, with some 400 officers involved.
McDonell said the suspects were either Canadian citizens or residents of Canada and had trained together.

UPDATE: U.S. Feds believe there may be connections to the U.S. with two people recently arrested in Georgia.

Via N.Y.Times excerpt: The F.B.I. released a statement saying that there was a "preliminary indication" that some of the Canadian subjects might have had "limited contact" with two people recently arrested from Georgia. Those two were Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, 19, an American of Bangladeshi descent, and Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, a Pakistani-born American.

Law-enforcement officials said they had made "casing" videos of various sites in Washington, D.C., and have said that their case was linked to the arrests of several men in Britain last fall, and that the two were believed to have met with "like-minded Islamic extremists " in Canada in March 2005.