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Three months after the RCMP began arresting 18 suspects accused of plotting terror attacks in Canada, an investigation by the National Post has uncovered a web of links to Pakistan. Today, in the first of four parts, the role of a Pakistani training camp is revealed.- - - BALAKOT, Pakistan - A worn footpath climbs from the Kaghan Valley highway into the lush mountains above the River Kunar, on Kashmir's western frontier. The locals all know where it leads. An hour's walk up the steep trail there is a training camp built by Islamic militants called Madrassa Syed Ahmed Shaheed...

BRITISH police claim to have found a "martyrdom video" in which one of the 24 British Muslims arrested over an alleged plot to destroy up to a dozen passenger aircraft sets out his reasons for joining the planned suicide attack. British officials said the damning evidence had been found in the home of one of the suspects, who include a 23-year-old biochemistry student and a Heathrow security guard with an all-areas access pass. The guard was in his airport uniform when he was arrested and led away in handcuffs. The suspects are mostly of Pakistani origin but two are white...

Brigitte spills beans on Aussie terror plan Ben English 18oct04 WILLIE Brigitte has told French investigators of his extraordinary journey from failed butcher to linchpin in an al-Qaida plan to launch a terror attack on Australia. He has detailed the high-altitude paramilitary training he undertook in a vast camp overlooking the Himalaya in which he and thousands of other jihad warriors were schooled in terrorism. And he has told of how Osama bin Laden's allies have penetrated the Pakistani Army to thwart US efforts to crack terrorist training operations in the remote Pakistani mountain regions that border Afghanistan. A year...

THE arrest of a Sydney student on terrorism training charges has intensified the police focus on four Sydney men allegedly linked to a Pakistan-based terror cell that ASIO suspects plotted to bomb Australian military bases last year. Fourth-year medical student Izhar Ul-Haque has spent his second night in the nation's highest-security prison, the Supermax at Goulburn, after becoming only the second person charged in Australia with terrorism offences since the 1978 Hilton bombing. NSW Premier Bob Carr confirmed yesterday that his Government had been asked to make preparations to house more than one suspect in its prison system. "We were...

SUSPECTED French terrorist Willie Brigitte tried to get information from his wife, former soldier Melanie Brown about the top-secret spy facility at Pine Gap, French police sources say. During her four days of interrogation by French officials in Paris last month, police said Ms Brown recalled incidents with Brigitte in Sydney that, on reflection, seemed suspicious to her. In particular, Ms Brown is understood to have told French interrogators that Brigitte questioned her at length about the US-Australian electronic intelligence station at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs. He asked her if she had ever been inside the base when...

THE Sydney woman who in September wed al-Qaeda operative and alleged terrorist Willie Brigitte after converting to Islam had been part of a Jewish gay group just 18 months earlier. Melanie Brown was photographed on the edge of a float in the 2002 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, wearing long lace-up Doc Martens. The float called "Twice Blessed" was built by Dayenu, a support group for Sydney's Jewish gays and lesbians. The Daily Telegraph understands Ms Brown became part of Dayenu in 2000 and then worked to build its floats in both 2001 and 2002. A former member of Dayenu...

Terror suspect linked to Afghan assassination October 28, 2003 - 9:11AM A Frenchman under investigation in Australia and France for possible terrorist activities was also suspected of links to the assassination of an Afghan leader, authorities said. Willie Virgile Brigitte, 35, is in custody in a Paris area jail where he is being held on suspicion of association with a terror group, French police and justice officials said. Investigations are under way in France and Australia into Brigitte's alleged links to the al-Qaeda terror network, French officials said today. A judicial official said that Brigitte was also suspected of running...

The alleged mastermind of a planned terrorist attack in Australia used a NSW Government website to get maps, data and satellite images of potential targets, including Sydney's Centrepoint, the Parramatta CBD and transport systems. "He was using it during office hours to look at things like the numbers of floors in a building," a former colleague of Faheem Lodhi told the Herald. "He was interested in areas dead smack in the middle of the city." Lodhi, 34, also bought a map of the country's energy supply system, which gave details of the routes of gas pipelines and the location of...

‘Pakistani terror suspect had bomb plans’ SYDNEY: A Pakistani-born man accused of planning terrorist attacks had maps of Australia’s power grid, aerial photographs of defence installations and bomb-making instructions in his possession when he was arrested, a court was told here on Tuesday. Architect Faheem Khalid Lodhi, 34, was also alleged in October 2001 to have acted “in an apparent official capacity” at a training camp in Lahore, operated by the banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba. “The camp specialised in urban warfare,” prosecutor Richard Maidment told Sydney’s Central Local Court at the opening of a committal hearing to decide if there...

A JURY has today found Sydney architect Faheem Khalid Lodhi guilty of three terrorism-related charges. A seven-week trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court was told that in October 2003 the 36-year-old was planning a bombing attack, motivated by violent jihad. The national electricity supply system or three Sydney defence sites – Victoria Barracks, HMAS Penguin or Holsworthy Barracks – were his possible targets, the jury was told. Lodhi inquired about chemicals capable of making explosives, and had instructions for making explosives, detonators and poisons, in preparation for a terrorist attack. He was also charged with acquiring two maps...

ONE of the men accused of plotting a terrorist attack in Australia had enough military-style ammunition to launch a continuous 35-hour barrage of gunfire. The evidence, from a ballistics expert, was quoted in court documents revealed yesterday as part of the case against nine Sydney men accused of planning an attack last year. The prosecution case against the group is so large it has been broken into 93 parts. Court documents allege that as well as planning to construct improvised explosive devices, a massive arsenal was part of the group's plans for an attack. They show that a search in...

ST. PETERSBURG: Minutes after Air India One, the special aircraft carrying the PM to St Petersburg entered the airspace of Uzbekistan, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan handed over to Manmohan Singh a one-page note. It contained the confessions by two Pakistani fidayeen who have blasted a huge hole in Pakistan's protestations of innocence about ISI's involvement in last week's terror assault on Mumbai. This will give a major boost to the PM's plan to lobby world leaders for coming down hard on the sponsors of terrorism. The two members of the jehadi suicide squad were arrested by security forces...

NEW DELHI: The arrest of a militant in Goa has foiled plans of Pakistan-based militant groups to carry out terror strikes in the tourist state, similar to 2002 Bali blasts in Indonesia, officials sources said on Sunday. The militant, Tarique Jalal, was tasked by his masters from across the border to create "sleeping cells" in the western tourist state to enable ultras to attack hotels and other places, frequented by foreigners, in Goa, the sources said. Police recovered one kg RDX, two hand grenades, two electronic detonators, two cameras, a mobile phone and a CD from Jalal's possession after his...

<p>Wednesday March 08, 2006,Lucknow: Hours after the blasts in Varanasi, a suspected Lashkar-e-Tayyaba militant was shot dead in an encounter with the police in Gosaiganj area on the outskirts of the city early this morning.</p> <p>Police identified the militant as Salar alias Doctor and did not rule out his involvement in yesterday's blasts at the Sankatmochan temple and Cantonment Railway station in Varanasi, which claimed at least twenty lives.</p>

TERROR suspect David Hicks received advanced training with al-Qa'ida for up to six months, the federal Government has been told. The allegation is believed to be part of the US case against the Australian, who has been held in a US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the past 19 months without charge or trial after being captured in Afghanistan. The Government has been told the US will allege Hicks learnt to use a range of weapons and carry out surveillance and ambushes during six months of training in al-Qa'ida's program. The new details emerged after The Australian launched...

Australia's top investigators claim Mamdouh Habib trained as a terrorist before the September 11 attacks. Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib trained as a terrorist in Pakistan before moving to Afghanistan to serve as a mercenary with al-Qaeda, Australia's top policeman has told a parliamentary inquiry. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said Mr Habib received firearms training in Pakistan in the days before September 11, 2001 to prepare him for a border crossing into Afghanistan to join Osama bin Laden's terrorist organisation. Habib was arrested by Pakistani police inside Pakistan on October 5, 2001. "The investigators formed the view...

A Delhi bus driver who saved the lives of around 70 passengers when he took a bomb from his vehicle during last month's terror attacks has been speaking of his experience. More than 60 people were killed and hundreds were injured when three bombs exploded in busy shopping districts in the Indian capital on 29 October. Among the wounded was Kuldeep Singh, who carried a bomb off his bus after it was found by one of the passengers. Mindful of the fact that the bus was fuelled by highly-explosive compressed gas, he urged the 70 passengers to flee while he...

Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba militant Mohammad Arif alias Ashfaq was today handed down the death penalty and fined Rs 4.35 lakh by a Delhi court in the December 2000 Red Fort attack case for waging war against the country and killing three Army personnel. The court also awarded life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs one lakh each to two other convicts hailing from Jammu and Kashmir, Nazir Ahmed Qasid and his son Farooq Ahmed Qasid, who also have been found guilty of waging war against the state and criminal conspiracy. "I direct that he (Ashfaq) shall be hanged by neck...

New Delhi, Oct 30. (PTI): Delhi Police today said a single outfit could have been behind the serial bomb blasts here and the 'Inquilab' group which has claimed responsibility for the explosions was connected to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). The Police also scaled down the number of casualties saying 59 people had been killed and 210 injured. Earlier, police had said 61 people were dead and 188 injured in the Saturday's blasts. "By looking into the timing and process of operation, it seems that the blasts have been trigerred by a single group," Karnal Singh, Joint Commissioner of the Special Cell...

LONDON: The serial blasts in Delhi sent shock waves across the Indian community in Britain and among the many Britons who have fond memories of the sights, sounds and smells of Paharganj, one of the affected areas. Britain was among the first to condemn the three Saturday blasts, with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw saying: "I utterly condemn the appalling attacks which appear to have been targeted at heavily populated areas to produce maximum carnage. "This is yet another example of terrorists' cynical and callous disregard for human life. On behalf of the British government, I would like to offer the...