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OTTAWA — Terror suspect Mohamed Harkat admitted in a March 1997 conversation that he knew al-Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah personally and did not fear being contacted by him at home, according to new court documents. A summary of that conversation — between Harkat and an unidentified Ottawa man — has been filed with the Federal Court. Prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the summary is one of 13 added to the public record in the security certificate case. It’s not clear whether the summaries are based on wiretaps, obtained under authority of the CSIS Act, or on informants’ accounts...

Every year, as we enter a New Year, my mind goes back to Daniel Pearl, the Mumbai-based American correspondent of Wall Street Journal, who met with a brutal end to his young life during a visit to Karachi in January 2002 to enquire, inter alia, into the suspected Pakistani links of international jihadi terrorists. In his keenness to find out the truth, Pearl fell into a treacherous trap laid by a mixed group of Pakistani terrorists belonging to different organisations and orchestrated by Omar Sheikh, a British resident of Pakistani origin, who had participated in the so-called jihad against the...

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...

OTTAWA -- A lovestruck Sophie Harkat had no idea what the future had in store for her when she met her husband at the gas station where he worked more than three years ago. Four days after Mohamed Harkat was arrested outside their apartment building, the 28-year-old woman is stunned by the allegations he has links to terrorism. "I've never had any reasons to suspect him of any wrongdoing," she said yesterday, speaking publicly for the first time since her husband's arrest earlier this week. "I'm shocked and appalled by this news. I sincerely love my husband and I trust...

The HUM is a member of Osama bin Ladin's "Islamic World Front for the struggle against the Jews and the Crusaders"...Fazlur Rehman Khalil, one of the HUM's leaders signed bin Ladin's fatwa in February 1998 calling for attacks on US and Western interests.

Alleged Canadian al-Qaeda 'sleeper' agent set to testify October 25, 2004 OTTAWA - A man accused of being a member of al-Qaeda appeared in an Ottawa federal court Monday to fight deportation to Algeria, where he fears he may be killed. Canadian authorities arrested Mohammed Harkat nearly two years ago on a national security certificate, which allows Ottawa to deport non-Canadian citizens considered a security risk. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service says Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda member now in custody, told American authorities he helped train Harkat in Afghanistan. CSIS thinks Harkat was sent to Canada as a "sleeper"...

Al Qaeda "sleeper cells" in Canada and the United States have communicated with each other as recently as this month, probably to plan terrorist attacks in the United States, Canadian intelligence experts said yesterday. The disclosure came in the wake of the arrest last week of a pizza delivery man in Ottawa who is suspected of being associated with the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden. Canadian authorities decided to arrest Mohamed Harkat, 34, shortly after he made calls to suspected al Qaeda members in the United States, said Reid Morden, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, who...

PESHAWAR: Pakistani authorities have arrested 21 Harkat-ul Mujahideen men, an outlawed Islamic militant group and are investigating their suspected links to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, police said on Thursday. The members of the group, Harkat-ul Mujahideen, were picked up on Wednesday in a raid on their safe-house in a northwestern city, police official Ilyas Khan said. The militants are now being interrogated at Mansehra, 300 kilometers (180 miles) northwest of Peshawar, Khan said. The Harkat-ul Mujahideen, formerly called the Ansar Movement, was founded to fight in Kashmir for its merger with Pakistan and its members are believed to have received training...