Monday, June 05, 2006

Terrorism Arrests—Canada

Over the weekend, Canadian authorities arrested 17 individuals, 12 men and five youths, who are suspected of plotting to landmarks in Canada. According to Canadian authorities, the specific targets remain a mystery, with Canadian papers offering a wide variety of locations: “the Star cited a CSIS building in downtown Toronto as a possible target, along with the Parliament buildings in Ottawa. The Globe and Mail also reported targets of the alleged plot included the Parliament Buildings and the Peace Tower in Ottawa, along with the CN Tower and the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Toronto CSIS office.”[1] The Canadian Press, however, cites a source in Ottawa who “squelched talk Sunday that the heart of the federal government was a target, insisting that the alleged plotters had their sights on locales solely in southern Ontario.”[2] The arrests were made after undercover agents delivered what was believed to be three tonnes of ammonium nitrate—one of the components of the bomb used by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City—but was actually a harmless substance.[3]

The investigation apparently began two years ago as “tech-savvy spies noticed some teens spending more and more time reading and posting to extremist websites.”[4] The Integrated National Security Enforcement Team [hereinafter INSET]—which is comprised of more than 400 individuals from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, (Canada’s spy agency[5]), and federal, provincial, and municipal police[6]—spent “thousands of hours diligently conducting the investigation.”[7] This type of surveillance was somewhat denied by Mike McDonnell, the RCMP’s assistant commissioner. Asked by NPR’s Steve Inskeep about the difficulties of monitoring “recent immigrants [and] people who are actually citizens,” Mr. McDonnell said “Well, actually, we don’t monitor recent immigrants. We don’t monitor the citizens, but we’re always looking for indications of criminality, and we pursue that. This is not a police state.”[8] Last week, after the deputy director of the CSIS, Jack Hooper, told the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defense that some Canadian citizens had trained with Al Qaeda, questions remained about “what the agency was doing in relation to monitoring or possibly questioning and detaining potential terrorists.”[9]

There have been reports that the individuals in Canada have been in contact with other people in a number of countries, including Great Britain, Denmark, Bangladesh, and the United States.[10] When asked by Bob Schieffer on CBS’s Face the Nation whether there is a relation between the Canadian individuals and and , Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was noncommittal. She stated that the US doesn’t “know very much more about [the plot], and we certainly don’t believe that there’s any link to the United States.”[11] Mr. Schieffer tried to press the point again during the interview, but Sec. Rice reiterated that the US doesn’t have any indication of a US plot but that there “is an ongoing operation—ongoing investigation” and that “it’s best not to talk about whatever details there may be.”[12] After the arrests of Mssrs. Ahmed and Sadequee, US officials alleged that the two men traveled to Washington, DC to shoot “casing videos” of the Capitol building “and other potential targets.”[13] Whether or not the weekend’s events will become part of the case against the two men remains to be seen.


[1] , Canadian Press (via the Chronicle Herald (Halifax)), Jun. 5, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] See Beth Duff-Brown, , AP (via Boston Globe), May 29, 2006.
[6] CP, supra note 1.
[7] Id.
[8] Morning Edition, , (NPR radio broadcast, Jun. 5, 2006).
[9] Duff-Brown, supra note 5.
[10] See Kathy Kiely, , USA Today (via Yahoo!), Jun. 5, 2006; Josh Meyer et al., , LA Times, Jun. 5, 2006; NPR, supra note 7.
[11] (CBS television broadcast, Jun. 4, 2006).
[12] Id.
[13] Tom Hays, AP (via WTOP), Apr. 29, 2006.

posted by McNabb Associates, P.C. @ 11:24 AM