Posted on 03/19/2005 5:34:57 AM PST by JesseHousman
NEW YORK — Without neglecting the U.S.-Mexican border, American officials better eye the northern frontier, too. While most Canadians are as friendly as Labrador retrievers, that attitude is not universal.
"I'm not afraid of dying, and killing doesn't frighten me," Algerian-born Canadian Fateh Kamel said on an Italian counterterrorism intercept. "If I have to press the remote control, vive the jihad!"
Kamel was convicted in France of distributing bogus passports and conspiring to blow up Paris Metro stations. He was sentenced April 6, 2001, to eight years in prison.
But after fewer than four years, France sprang Kamel for "good behavior." Kamel flew home to Canada Jan. 29.
"When Kamel arrived in Montreal, the (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) was not even at the airport to greet him," Stewart Bell reported March 4 in Canada's National Post. "As far as they're concerned, he is an ex-convict who has done his time and has committed no crimes in Canada."
Kamel now freely strolls Canada's streets. That's fine, if he limits his violence to moose hunting. But what if he has humans — Americans, even — in his crosshairs?
"We should be looking at him and possibly sending him back to Algeria," Conservative Party deputy leader Peter MacKay said in the Feb. 27 Toronto Star. MacKay believes Kamel symbolizes Ottawa's peaceful, easy feeling toward terrorist killers. "The French authorities wanted him out of the country, and we were all too willing to take him in."
Kamel is not alone. Canada crawls with terrorists, suspected violent extremists, and folks worthy of 24-hour surveillance:
• "There are several graduates of terrorist training camps, many of whom are battle-hardened veterans of campaigns in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere who reside here," Canadian Security and Intelligence Director Jim Judd told a Canadian Senate panel in Ottawa March 7. Among other things, Canadian-based terrorists have aspired to whack a visiting Israeli official, bomb a Jewish district in Montreal, and sabotage an El Al jet over Canada.
• Adil Charkaoui was released Feb. 18 on bail. Charkaoui claims no terrorist ties, but al Qaeda honcho Abu Zubaida and convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam say they met him in 1998 at an Afghan terror training camp.
• Algerian-born Ressam, a failed Montreal refugee applicant and suspected Fateh Kamel protege, was caught by the U.S. Border Patrol on Dec. 14, 1999, at Port Angeles, Wash., after crossing the Canadian frontier in an explosive-laden car. He dreamed of ringing in the millennium by blowing up Los Angeles International Airport.
• The Washington Times' Jerry Seper reported last Sept. 24 that Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, an al Qaeda cell leader with a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, visited Canada in 2003 seeking nuclear materials for a dirty bomb.
• Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin attended a May 2000 dinner while finance minister. Its hosts: a front for the Tamil Tigers, a Sri Lankan terrorist group that has killed some 60 people, including two Americans, and injured at least 1,400 others. Martin ignored security officials who warned him away. Wooing Canada's sizable Tamil minority apparently was irresistible.
"There are known al Qaeda cells in Montreal and Toronto," one congressional expert tells me. She nonetheless detects progress among Canadian counter-terrorists. "They are very sensitive about being called a conduit for terrorism. Since September 11, Canada has been on the offense. The RCMP has some joint intelligence centers where both Americans and Canadians operate."
Still, this analyst sees areas of danger, from asylum loopholes to vulnerable infrastructure. Detonating the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, for example, could cripple the most economically valuable trade route linking our two countries.
Harvey Kushner, author of the hair-raising counterterrorism bestseller, "Holy War on the Home Front," is less sanguine. "Canada's immigration policies have let this situation fester and grow," he tells me. "We do not have an electrified fence. When you have a neighbor who is not on the same page, it is indeed troublesome."
The warm U.S.-Canadian relationship, illustrated by our 3,145-mile unprotected boundary, cooled somewhat when Ottawa recently refused to help Washington develop defenses against incoming nuclear-tipped missiles. But that modest dispute will pale beside the northward-flowing rancor that will erupt if a terrorist attack kills innocent Americans, and U.S. officials discover that the butchers slipped past complacent Canadians.
This is great!
They want to die and we want to kill them!
Call this mess with islam what it truly is: A Crusade!
Lets see....can I find anywhere along the border where a truck load of death can be driven across without being detected???...no rocket science needed here......
I used to have sincere respect for Canada. Now I consider it a dangerous joke.
The porous borders North and South of the lower 48 are portals for potential martyrs (in search of 72 virgins) to gain entrance. They do this daily.
Be assured when it comes to mohammedheads of the dangerous variety the northern border with Canada is a greater threat than Mexico will ever be.
Terrorists in Canada ping.
Thank you for recognizing that the North border is just as much of a problem - and it's probably more of a problem, due to geography.
Wonder if the folks who use the border argument to push their anti-Mexican agenda will show up here to acknowledge this?
...for hundreds of miles at the border...the only thing around is crickets.....
You don't know where the Agoura Delicatessen is do you?
L.O.L.....what's that got to do with the time of day in Denmark???
Colin Perkel
Canadian Press
March 15, 2005...The U.S.-led war on terrorism has made al-Qaida an even more dangerous organization, a senior Canadian intelligence official said Monday.
The blunt assessment of the group's increased "lethal effectiveness" came during a bail hearing for an Egyptian national detained as a threat to Canada's national security.
U.S. action in Afghanistan that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks "significantly degraded" al-Qaida's infrastructure and its ability to provide support for other extremist Islamic groups, said the official, identified only as J. P.
However, that merely prompted terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden to put out calls to like-minded groups "to take over the fight," said J. P., the deputy chief of counter-terrorism with the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service.
"That appeal has been effective," J. P. told Federal Court Justice Eleanor Dawson.
The effect has been a "net increase" in terrorist activities and the results can be seen in "broken bodies and blood in the streets," he said.
"We now have a more dangerous al-Qaida."
J. P. was testifying in the bail-release application of Mohammad Mahjoub, 44, an Egyptian who has been in a Toronto jail since being detained as a threat to national security since June 2000.
Canada's spy agency alleges Mahjoub was a leading member of the Egyptian terrorist group Vanguards of Conquest, which has close ties to bin Laden's al-Qaida.
Egyptian authorities tried Mahjoub along with 106 others in a trial condemned internationally for its unfair process and torture of witnesses. Mahjoub was sentenced in absentia to 15 years and maintains he would be tortured if returned to Egypt.
J. P. testified the intelligence service is sensitive to the possibility that information from foreign sources could be wrong or politically motivated.
He also said CSIS annually reviews the human-rights records of countries with whom it has a working relationship.
We do not use information that appears to have been solicited from torture."
J. P. agreed with defence lawyer John Norris that increased scrutiny of Arabs by security forces has made non-Arabs, such as African-American converts to Islam, more valuable to al-Qaida as terrorist operatives because they attract less attention.
"(Al-Qaida has) always placed a premium on individuals who have the ability to be as stealthy as possible in the theatres of operation," J. P. said.
"It is now perhaps a greater premium. Their value has increased to the organization."
However, he was emphatic the people selecting targets and masterminding attacks has not changed.
"The old-guard al-Qaida is still involved in making those decisions."
Mahjoub is deemed a threat based in part on people he knew or associated with.
But Norris told the court that a man deemed a security threat in the United Kingdom because of his senior status in the Egyptian terrorist group was recently freed without conditions.
The last assessment of Mahjoub's security threat is two years old and therefore may no longer be valid, Norris said in an interview.
J. P. said Mahjoub, if released under strict conditions, could still go underground and carry out terrorist attacks in Canada.
The government of Mexico has been inherently evil since Spain left North America.
It is a cancer on the arse of America and the conduit through which hundreds of thousands of lowlife pour into the U. S. annually.
The government is so corrupt that it's no wonder many decent Mexican citizens want to leave.
These illegals need to stay South of our border and duke it out with the federales.
I believe that conditions with Mexico are so bad that we need to close our embassy and break off all diplomatic relations.
Mexico has allied itself with, not only Castro and Chavez, but with Iran, China and Russia who want to build a beachhead (as if Panama wasn't sufficient) to launch destruction on the U. S.
Just something to break the monotony of serious discourse.
"Al Qanada", the fiend to the north..
Anti-Mexico? Anti-Mexican? Thanks for at least being honest about your motivation.
As far as the actual protection of the US borders where terrorism is concerned - I'll put more stock in those folks who recognize that the border with Mexico only makes up about 1/8 of the total US border and coastline.
You have to understand what is happening in Mexico, however. The government of el Presidente Fox is playing footsies big-time with our other enemies: Iran, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. etc.. Those nations want a foothold in this hemisphere and that, of course, has nothing to do with the ridiculous NAFTA treaty.
Something doesnt add up here. If our border to the north is so ungaurded (which is true in many places) and Canada really is overflowing with Terrorists & Jihadists, why arnt they sneaking accross the border in droves to blow up buses, movie theatres, etc.?? Why would Al-Qeada want to get extremists into the U.S. via Mexico with Honduran issued passports if they could just do it the easy way, from the great white north??
What is their special?...now I am hungry...thanks.
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