Posted on 01/04/2010 7:09:46 PM PST by Clive
OTTAWA -- As the clock ticked down to the inauguration of Barack Obama, the RCMP was investigating urgent, high-level U.S. fears that Somali extremists from Canada were poised for a spectacular attack on the historic ceremony, the Ottawa Citizen has learned.
In the days and hours leading up to the Jan. 20, 2009 inaugural on the steps of the Capitol building, the monumental threat unfolded in Washington and at the National Security Criminal Investigations unit at RCMP Headquarters in Ottawa.
About three days earlier, an informant walked into an overseas U.S. embassy and claimed that Canadian disciples of al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-inspired Somali militant group, had crossed the northern border and intended to detonate high explosives at the event, a source close to the investigation confirmed to the Citizen. Al-Shabab is an outlawed terrorist organization in the United States, but not in Canada.
A major FBI terrorism probe, soon involving much of the country's national security and intelligence analysis apparatus, deemed the tip to be increasingly credible, according to The New York Times.
The information was taken so seriously, the incoming administration made contingency plans in the event Obama was assassinated, the Times reports.
"All the data points suggested there was a real threat evolving quickly that had an overseas component," Juan Carlos Zarate, former president George W. Bush's deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, told Times White House correspondent Peter Baker.
The threat seemed to weigh on Mr. Obama, too, writes Baker: "He cancelled a practice session to go over his inaugural address with aides at Blair House. David Axelrod, his senior adviser, later interpreted that as a sign that Mr. Obama was thinking about the suspected plot.
"He seemed more subdued than he had been," said Mr. Axelrod.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
In hindsight, it seems that the wish and intent was there, but the means not quite developed.
It is intriguing to think that Obama has been under threat, and fearful, from Islamic terrorists even before he was inaugurated.
And yet his own adminstration wants to spin the threat to issue from the "right-wing" and worse, veterans.
Cognitive dissonance does not allow Obama to compute who his enemies really are.
*****
No, it is not. It is the nearest thing that Canada has to a conservative-leaning publication.
Interesting that the two articles posted here were made public by the National Post and foxnews
Obama defenders know how to make 'news' seem credible.
And yet they let their children be smack in the middle of it all? I’m not sure I’m buying this story.
There are neo-nazi meth addicts in Somalia? Because that was the threat that the media ran stories about at the time.
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