OTTAWA (Reuters) - Although Canada is triumphantly publicizing its arrest of 17 alleged home-grown terror suspects, the country's law enforcement bodies have a mixed record when it comes to determining the threat from militants.
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Twice since the September 11 suicide attacks, authorities have mounted major anti-terror operations that produced little.
In one instance, police near Toronto arrested 23 mainly Pakistani students in 2003 amid talk about an al-Qaeda sleeper cell and questions about whether one of the accused planned to crash a small plane into a local nuclear power station.
The case quickly fizzled as it became clear none of those involved had links to terror groups. Most were subsequently deported for immigration violations.
"You had very shoddy research and a lot of theories and conclusions that the security intelligence (service) was jumping to without hard evidence. The impact on the individuals ... was a complete deterioration of their mental state," said Amina Sherazee, a lawyer for one of the accused.
A separate probe by police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) spy agency into an alleged Syrian terror ring in Ottawa in 2002 became the target of an official commission of inquiry after one of the men under surveillance was deported to Syria by U.S. agents.
University of Toronto professor Wesley Wark, one of Canada's leading security experts, said authorities were caught completely off-balance by the September 11 attacks.
"I think there was a lot of scrambling, there was a kind of atmosphere of crisis and panic -- that may have contributed in the early days to some of these false starts in intelligence investigations," he told Reuters on Tuesday.
"One of the things that may have made the success -- if that's what it is -- of the current investigation is simply learning lessons from those previous failures and wanting to be very sure that the information they had was solid."
The 17 suspects were arrested in and around Toronto after what authorities said was a flawless joint operation by Canada's federal police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and CSIS. Rivalry between the two agencies has caused problems in the past.
One notorious case is that of an Air India flight from Canada that was brought down by a bomb in 1985 over the Atlantic Ocean off the Irish coast with the loss of 329 lives. CSIS agents destroyed tapes of conversations between some of the suspects in the case, and CSIS was also accused of not sharing information with the Mounties early in the investigation.
Two suspects tried for murder in the Air India case were found not guilty despite one of the most expensive investigations in Canadian history. An official inquiry is set to probe how that investigation was carried out.
Counterintelligence was originally handled by the Mounties' security service, but this was disbanded after it emerged that officers had regularly broken the law and resorted to violence. The Mountie contingent of spies was folded into the new CSIS in 1984, triggering persistent friction between the two forces.
"The relationship between CSIS and the RCMP has certainly evolved over the years ... The (Toronto) investigation was an excellent example of seamless cooperation between the two agencies," said CSIS spokeswoman Barbara Campion.
Wark says that while ties between the two forces are "probably much better," they are not perfect.
"I think there was a recognition that the failures surrounding the Air India investigation ... couldn't be allowed to persist (after September 11)," he said.
Ottawa rapidly boosted its counterintelligence and security forces after September 11, spending an estimated extra C$9.3 billion since then on more officers, upgraded equipment and a sophisticated integrated threat assessment center.
"Once our security services and our police decide they want to follow you, your chances of getting away with any kind of serious crime are pretty slim," said Chris Mathers, a former undercover policeman who is now a security consultant.
"The entire weight of the government's security process comes down on top of your head," he told CBC television.
Police now have extended powers under Canada's new anti-terror legislation, which was first used in 2004 to arrest Ottawa software engineer Mohammed Momin Khawaja. He is due to go on trial on terrorism charges early next year.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060606...Z2METFoNPZvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM-
So I don't hold out too much hope that this is the similar kind of operation.
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Twice since the September 11 suicide attacks, authorities have mounted major anti-terror operations that produced little.
In one instance, police near Toronto arrested 23 mainly Pakistani students in 2003 amid talk about an al-Qaeda sleeper cell and questions about whether one of the accused planned to crash a small plane into a local nuclear power station.
The case quickly fizzled as it became clear none of those involved had links to terror groups. Most were subsequently deported for immigration violations.
"You had very shoddy research and a lot of theories and conclusions that the security intelligence (service) was jumping to without hard evidence. The impact on the individuals ... was a complete deterioration of their mental state," said Amina Sherazee, a lawyer for one of the accused.
A separate probe by police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) spy agency into an alleged Syrian terror ring in Ottawa in 2002 became the target of an official commission of inquiry after one of the men under surveillance was deported to Syria by U.S. agents.
University of Toronto professor Wesley Wark, one of Canada's leading security experts, said authorities were caught completely off-balance by the September 11 attacks.
"I think there was a lot of scrambling, there was a kind of atmosphere of crisis and panic -- that may have contributed in the early days to some of these false starts in intelligence investigations," he told Reuters on Tuesday.
"One of the things that may have made the success -- if that's what it is -- of the current investigation is simply learning lessons from those previous failures and wanting to be very sure that the information they had was solid."
The 17 suspects were arrested in and around Toronto after what authorities said was a flawless joint operation by Canada's federal police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and CSIS. Rivalry between the two agencies has caused problems in the past.
One notorious case is that of an Air India flight from Canada that was brought down by a bomb in 1985 over the Atlantic Ocean off the Irish coast with the loss of 329 lives. CSIS agents destroyed tapes of conversations between some of the suspects in the case, and CSIS was also accused of not sharing information with the Mounties early in the investigation.
Two suspects tried for murder in the Air India case were found not guilty despite one of the most expensive investigations in Canadian history. An official inquiry is set to probe how that investigation was carried out.
Counterintelligence was originally handled by the Mounties' security service, but this was disbanded after it emerged that officers had regularly broken the law and resorted to violence. The Mountie contingent of spies was folded into the new CSIS in 1984, triggering persistent friction between the two forces.
"The relationship between CSIS and the RCMP has certainly evolved over the years ... The (Toronto) investigation was an excellent example of seamless cooperation between the two agencies," said CSIS spokeswoman Barbara Campion.
Wark says that while ties between the two forces are "probably much better," they are not perfect.
"I think there was a recognition that the failures surrounding the Air India investigation ... couldn't be allowed to persist (after September 11)," he said.
Ottawa rapidly boosted its counterintelligence and security forces after September 11, spending an estimated extra C$9.3 billion since then on more officers, upgraded equipment and a sophisticated integrated threat assessment center.
"Once our security services and our police decide they want to follow you, your chances of getting away with any kind of serious crime are pretty slim," said Chris Mathers, a former undercover policeman who is now a security consultant.
"The entire weight of the government's security process comes down on top of your head," he told CBC television.
Police now have extended powers under Canada's new anti-terror legislation, which was first used in 2004 to arrest Ottawa software engineer Mohammed Momin Khawaja. He is due to go on trial on terrorism charges early next year.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060606...Z2METFoNPZvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM-
So I don't hold out too much hope that this is the similar kind of operation.