Now this is for real, the validity of such a thought should make many realize were Canada sits on the terrorist’s shit list, and what is Canada doing to insure that one of these examples below doesn’t escape the strictest scrutiny in hope that the unthinkable doesn’t happen on Canadian soil.
Mounties thwart bomb plot as 17 arrested
CANADIAN authorities have thwarted what they believe to be a major terrorist threat with the arrests of 17 people "inspired by al-Qaeda" who had stockpiled huge amounts of explosives.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the suspects, 12 men and five juveniles, were all Canadian residents, mostly from the Toronto area, and were rounded up in raids over the weekend.
Fifteen of the suspects appeared yesterday in a heavily guarded courtroom in Toronto, with family members sobbing.
The arrests were the culmination of the largest counter-terrorism operation in Canada since the passage of the country's Anti-Terrorism Act shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Authorities declined to identify the targets of the alleged plot, saying only that they were in southern Ontario, which includes Toronto, Canada's largest city, and Ottawa, its capital.
They did, however, deny a report that Toronto's mass transit system had been targeted.
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Authorities bore down on the suspects after the group secured three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser that can be used to make explosives.
"It was their intent to use it for a terrorist attack," Mike McDonell, assistant commissioner of the mounted police, said yesterday in Toronto.
"To put it in context, the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people was completed with only one tonne of ammonium nitrate."
He said the group "posed a real and serious threat".
"It had the capacity and intent to carry out these attacks."
Authorities would not say what triggered their probe, which called on more than 400 officers and investigators from several law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community, or how long they had watched suspects.
They said they could not disclose too many details because the probe was continuing.
But they said the suspects, the oldest of whom is 43 and most of whom are young men, trained together. They come "from a variety of backgrounds". Some are students, some work, and some are unemployed.
Luc Portelance, assistant director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service - the country's spy agency - said the suspects "appear to have become adherents of a violent ideology inspired by al-Qaeda", although investigators had not found a link to the network led by Osama bin Laden.
The FBI in Washington said the Canadian suspects may have had "limited contact" with two men recently arrested on terrorism charges in the US stateof Georgia.
FBI special agent Richard Kilko said there may have been a connection between the Canadian men and a Georgia Tech student and another American who had travelled to Canada to meet Islamic extremists to discuss locations for a terrorist strike.
Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, both US citizens who grew up in the Atlanta area, were arrested in March. Officials said the weekend arrests proved that the threat ofterrorism was real in Canada - and that efforts to foil it wereworking.
"These individuals were allegedly intent on committing acts of terrorism against their own country and their own people," recently elected Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.
"As we have said on many occasions, Canada is not immune to the threat of terrorism ... Today, Canada's security and intelligence measures worked."
The Toronto Star newspaper, citing unidentified police sources, reported that the suspects attended a training camp north of Toronto and had plotted to attack the downtown Toronto office of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, but authorities refused to confirm those reports.
Mounties thwart bomb plot as 17 arrested
CANADIAN authorities have thwarted what they believe to be a major terrorist threat with the arrests of 17 people "inspired by al-Qaeda" who had stockpiled huge amounts of explosives.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the suspects, 12 men and five juveniles, were all Canadian residents, mostly from the Toronto area, and were rounded up in raids over the weekend.
Fifteen of the suspects appeared yesterday in a heavily guarded courtroom in Toronto, with family members sobbing.
The arrests were the culmination of the largest counter-terrorism operation in Canada since the passage of the country's Anti-Terrorism Act shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Authorities declined to identify the targets of the alleged plot, saying only that they were in southern Ontario, which includes Toronto, Canada's largest city, and Ottawa, its capital.
They did, however, deny a report that Toronto's mass transit system had been targeted.
Advertisement:
Authorities bore down on the suspects after the group secured three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser that can be used to make explosives.
"It was their intent to use it for a terrorist attack," Mike McDonell, assistant commissioner of the mounted police, said yesterday in Toronto.
"To put it in context, the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people was completed with only one tonne of ammonium nitrate."
He said the group "posed a real and serious threat".
"It had the capacity and intent to carry out these attacks."
Authorities would not say what triggered their probe, which called on more than 400 officers and investigators from several law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community, or how long they had watched suspects.
They said they could not disclose too many details because the probe was continuing.
But they said the suspects, the oldest of whom is 43 and most of whom are young men, trained together. They come "from a variety of backgrounds". Some are students, some work, and some are unemployed.
Luc Portelance, assistant director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service - the country's spy agency - said the suspects "appear to have become adherents of a violent ideology inspired by al-Qaeda", although investigators had not found a link to the network led by Osama bin Laden.
The FBI in Washington said the Canadian suspects may have had "limited contact" with two men recently arrested on terrorism charges in the US stateof Georgia.
FBI special agent Richard Kilko said there may have been a connection between the Canadian men and a Georgia Tech student and another American who had travelled to Canada to meet Islamic extremists to discuss locations for a terrorist strike.
Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, both US citizens who grew up in the Atlanta area, were arrested in March. Officials said the weekend arrests proved that the threat ofterrorism was real in Canada - and that efforts to foil it wereworking.
"These individuals were allegedly intent on committing acts of terrorism against their own country and their own people," recently elected Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.
"As we have said on many occasions, Canada is not immune to the threat of terrorism ... Today, Canada's security and intelligence measures worked."
The Toronto Star newspaper, citing unidentified police sources, reported that the suspects attended a training camp north of Toronto and had plotted to attack the downtown Toronto office of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, but authorities refused to confirm those reports.
