Free Republic

Terrorism and Security: Major Canadian Media Organizations Possibly a Haven for Single-Issue Activists Government policy analyst lodges request for investigation of lop-sided media coverage of two terrorism related cases. Poor journalism widespread while watchdog bodies ineffective or biased. (I-Newswire) - Literally millions of Canadians have read the newspapers or seen coverage of the cases of Muhammed Mahjoub, a suspected terrorist being held indefinitely on a secret service security certificate, and Maher Arar, also suspected of having terrorist connections. While Canadian media such as the CBC and the Canadian Press have provided ample opportunities for Maher Arar and Muhammed Mahjoub and...

Two men tried to re-enter Canada from the United States early Saturday with handguns and ammunition strapped to their bodies, Canadian police said. Ali Dirie, 22, and Yasin Mohamed, 23 -- both Canadians from the Toronto area -- face weapons-related charges and are in police custody in Niagara Falls, Ontario, according to a police statement. Ontario's Provincial Weapons Enforcement Team and the Niagara Regional Police Service are investigating. Detective Sgt. Shawn Clarkson, of the Niagara Regional Police Service, would not say what led border officers to search the men. The men's vehicle underwent a routine search at about 5:40 a.m....

Hateful chatter behind the veil Key suspects' wives held radical views, Web postings revealMISSISSAUGA — When it came time to write up the premarital agreement between Zakaria Amara and Nada Farooq, Ms. Farooq briefly considered adding a clause that would allow her to ask for a divorce. She said that Mr. Amara (now accused of being a leader of the alleged terror plot that led to the arrests of 17 Muslim men early this month) had to aspire to take part in jihad. "[And] if he ever refuses a clear opportunity to leave for jihad, then i want the choice...

RCMP raids Toronto Tamil offices Tigers outlawed as a terrorist group Toronto Star Surya Bhattacharya and Michelle Shephard April 23, 2006 Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers raided the Scarborough and Toronto offices of the World Tamil Movement yesterday, sealing off the building with yellow police tape and carting off boxes of documents. Police hit offices at 39 Consentino Dr. in Scarborough, and later yesterday the community Tamil radio station reported a similar raid on the Toronto office on Eaton Ave., near Wellesley and Parliament Sts. in downtown Toronto. The World Tamil Movement maintains a third office here at 1231 Ellesmere...

BRAMPTON, Ont. (CP) - One of the suspects in a Toronto terror plot is accused of wanting to behead Canada's prime minister, his lawyer said Tuesday. Lawyer Gary Batasar says the allegations against his client are very serious and include his personal threat against the prime minister. Steven Chand is also accused of plotting to storm and bomb various buildings, he says. Chand is among 17 people accused of plotting to stage a massive terrorist attack in southern Ontario. Fifteen of the 17 people facing charges are in court today. Family members who arrived to support them were met by...

TORONTO - Canadian counter- terrorism investigators have dismantled a suspected terrorist cell in Toronto whose members included an al-Qaeda-trained explosives expert, the National Post has learned. The cell consisted of four Algerian refugee claimants who had lived in Canada for as long as six years and were alleged members of a radical Islamic terror faction called the Salafist Group for Call and Combat. The central figure of the Toronto-area cell was a former al-Qaeda training camp instructor who studied bomb-making at Osama bin Laden's Al Farooq and Khaldun training camps in eastern Afghanistan. The group was watched by intelligence officers...

Saddam Accepted the American Ultimatum Before the US Invasion, According to Rights and Freedom International Monday October 30, 4:35 pm ET TORONTO, Oct. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- A former political adviser to Saddam Hussein's son said today that Saddam was willing to yield to all American demands before the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- but that the Bush administration refused his offers. The disclosure was made by Hossam Shaltout, a Canadian aerospace engineer, former American pilot, and founder of the peace organization Rights and Freedom International (http://www.rightsandfreedom.com), who said that war could have been averted, but Bush aides blocked his efforts...

Ottawa pulls Saudi group's charity status Tax violation: Muslim World League being sued by 9/11 families Stewart Bell National Post Monday, December 01, 2003 TORONTO - Federal regulators have revoked the charity status of the Canadian branch of a Saudi organization that has faced longstanding allegations of ties to terrorism. A notice in the government publication Canada Gazette said the Muslim World League (MWL) is one of several charities that "have not met the filing requirements of the Income Tax Act." The revocation came into effect on Nov. 15, but the organization, dedicated to promoting Islam, was still calling itself...

Williams worked with authorities on al-Qaida links When Canadian law enforcement authorities busted a Toronto terrorist plot with al-Qaida connections, they acted with the benefit of briefings and research developed by American investigator Paul L. Williams, author of the new WND Books release "Dunces of Doomsday: 10 Blunders that Gave Rise to Radical Islam." Canadian police last Friday arrested 17 suspected Islamic terrorists, mostly in Toronto, who were allegedly planning to unleash a string of attacks in Ontario in retaliation for the country's support of the U.S. in the War on Terror. Williams has long been investigating the link between...

Part 2 of National Post's series: "The path to terror in Canada" Terror suspect's bride: 'I'm shocked' Stewart Bell National Post Tuesday, September 05, 2006 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 second of four parts, an exclusive interview with the Pakistani bride of Toronto terror suspect Jahmaal James. LAHORE, Pakistan - There are plastic flowers on the walls, a small computer on the table beneath the window and a curtain for a door....

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...

While I was on a visit to Toronto recently, police arrested 17 men, the oldest of them 43 but most much younger, on charges of plotting a terrorist attack. They wished, apparently, to blow up the parliament in Ottawa and publicly behead the prime minister. Cops caught them in the process of buying three times as much material for explosives as Timothy McVeigh used in the Oklahoma City bombing. Reporting the arrests, the New York Times called the men “South Asians”—though one of them was an Egyptian, two were Somali, and most had been born in Canada—thus concealing by an...

Homegrown terror Toronto Sun Tuesday, August 15, 2006 By SALIM MANSUR The October Crisis of 1970 has seemingly faded from the collective memory of Canadians and its lesson forgotten by the once mighty Liberal party and its present leadership aspirants. But the lesson of that history has acquired great relevance in our post-9/11 world. Let us briefly recall the events of nearly 36 years ago. On Oct. 5, 1970, members of the Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ) kidnapped James Cross, the British trade commissioner, in Montreal. Five days later, Pierre Laporte, Quebec’s minister of labour in Robert Bourassa’s...

TORONTO (CP) - An 18th terror suspect was arrested and charged Thursday in connection with an alleged plot to attack targets in Ontario. Ibrahim Alkhalel Mohammed Aboud, 19, of Mississauga, Ont., is charged under Section 83.01 of the Criminal Code - which outlines terrorism-related offences - and is to appear in court on Friday. Aboud was arrested at his residence late Thursday afternoon - about two months after the June 2 arrests that put 17 alleged co-conspirators in custody. Neighbours said they were surprised to see police lurking in their normally quiet townhouse complex for much of the day; some...

TORONTO – The surprise announcement by a prominent Muslim leader here that he was an informant who helped authorities arrest 17 Muslims on terrorism charges has raised questions in the Muslim community over the ethics of informing versus a responsibility to stop violence. Since outing himself as an informant who infiltrated and trained with the suspects, Mubin Shaikh has come under harsh criticism by some Toronto Muslims and sparked a debate about how far citizens should go in aiding police investigations, even as he has been hailed as a hero in the mainstream media.

Muslim extremist admits he was spy who revealed Canada bomb plot By Toby Harnden (Filed: 16/07/2006) Muslim leaders in Canada have reacted with fury after a radical advocate of Sharia law revealed that he had been a government spy who helped to uncover an alleged al-Qaeda plot, writes Toby Harnden. Mubin Shaikh, 29, came forward to confirm that he was recruited by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country's equivalent of MI5, and directed a 10-day winter training course in guerrilla tactics. During the course, which Mr Shaikh set up in a field in the remote village of Washago,...

MISSISSAUGA — More than anything, Zakaria Amara wanted to serve God. But it was never easy, especially not while living in Canada. During the summer of 2004, the then-18-year-old felt disgusted by women who were immodestly dressed. For the same reason, he couldn't watch television. He and his wife Nada Farooq stopped going to movies. One of his devout friends in England sent him a desperate e-mail asking for help in beating an addiction to pornography. But the forces tugging at Mr. Amara -- who now stands accused of being one of two leaders in a terrorist plot -- in...

Six statements by a Georgia Tech student arrested on terrorism-related charges should be thrown out because of false promises and implied threats from investigators, the man's attorney said in court filings Thursday. Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, talked to FBI agents after being told he would not be arrested if he cooperated. Ahmed did talk — six interviews over a week's time — and then was arrested, his court-appointed attorney Jack Martin said. The agents also "prey[ed] on the defendant's devotion to Islam" to gain his trust and cooperation, he said. "Office [Khalid] Sediqui, who revealed that he was a devout...

Lawyers acting for a group of Canadian terror suspects have complained about a media blackout on court proceedings. Speaking after 14 of the 17 suspects appeared at a bail hearing in Brampton, Ontario, they said it was indicative that the men cannot get a fair trial. Details of the charges they face have not been published but their lawyers say they include an alleged plot to storm parliament and behead the PM. The accusations against the men, most Canadians, has caused nationwide shock. Citizens' rights Rocco Galati, representing one of the suspects, who include five teenagers, complained that the men...

<p>It didn’t take long to start pooh-poohing the significance of eliminating Zarqawi. MSNBC/al-Reuters headline: ‘Zarqawi more myth than Man.’ And of course, the hate-America crowd hinted the ‘timing’ was peculiar (Bush needed a boost in the polls). Zarqawi was a very important man in the terror network and welcomed by the radical Shiite regime in Tehran. he was more than a leader of one faction in a religious war; he promoted religious conflict as a tactic to destabilize Iraq and drive out the Coalition. He and his Iranian backers/masters promoted all kinds of internal Iraqi conflict: Kurds against Arabs, Turkamen against Kurds, anything that worked. The terror masters put aside their differences and made a war plan in which Sunni and Shia, Syrian and Saudi, Iranian and Iraqi cooperated against their common satanic enemy, the United States. Another important fact emerged from the accounts of the attack on Zarqawi: we killed two women in the same house. because they were his key intelligence officers in the jihadist terror organizations, despite endless citations from the Koran demanding their subservience. Theywere important components of the terror headquarters. And second, when our soldiers enter terrorists’ quarters and kill women in the ensuing firefight, it is highly probable the women may be terrorists also. Zarqawi played on a global scale. Reports from Canada recount contacts between the ‘home-grown’ terrorists arrested by the Mounties and Zarqawi: ‘Mississauga News,’ June 7: ‘The arrest of 17 suspects...is said to be the latest stage in dismantling a terrorist network that’s linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi...’).and seem linked to FBI arrests in Atlanta and others in Sarajevo, England, and Denmark. The public announcement a few months ago that Zarqawi was no longer the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, that henceforth the Iraqi Sunni ‘community’ would run the terror war there stated Zarqawi would devote his efforts to the international jihad.</p>