Internet monitoring sparked investigation into terror cell

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1149285034044&call_pageid=976163513378>



Toronto Star



How Internet monitoring sparked a CSIS investigation into a suspected
homegrown terror cell

Jun. 3, 2006. 01:00 AM

MICHELLE SHEPHARD

STAFF REPORTER

Last night's dramatic police raid and arrest of as many as a dozen men -
with more to come - marks the culmination of Canada's largest ever
terrorism investigation into an alleged homegrown cell.

The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving
through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and
vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad.

Their words were sometimes encrypted, the Internet sites where they
communicated allegedly restricted by passwords, but Canadian spies back in
2004 were reading them. And as the youths' words turned into actions, they
began watching them.

According to sources close to the investigation, the suspects are teenagers
and men in their 20s who had a relatively typical Canadian upbringing, but
- allegedly spurred on by images of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan and
angered by what they saw as the mistreatment of Muslims at home - became
increasingly violent.

Police say they acquired weapons, picked targets and made detailed plans.

They travelled north to a "training camp" and made propaganda videos
imitating jihadists who had battled in Afghanistan. At night, they washed
up at a Tim Hortons nearby.

One was a math and chemistry whiz from Scarborough who grew up to become a
22-year-old husband and father.

It's unclear why the authorities decided to act on their suspicions
yesterday. None of these allegations has been proven in court, where the
suspects are expected to appear for the first time this morning.

Sources say the arrests involve a "homegrown" terrorism cell - Western
youths who have never set foot in Afghanistan but allegedly were
radicalized here, and who are thought to be potentially as dangerous as the
cells that once took orders from Osama bin Laden. Western governments,
including Canada's, have repeatedly warned of this phenomenon and blamed
recent attacks, such as last July's bombings in London, as the work of such
groups.

The Canadian investigation involves a complicated web of connections, with
alleged ties to two men from Georgia who came to Toronto in March 2005 to
meet with "like-minded Islamic extremists," according to U.S. court
documents.

Details of the Canadian investigation will be officially released this
morning at a news conference.

For the spies who work on the 10th floor of a Front St. office building,
with the CN Tower looming above and a hub of Toronto's tourist district
buzzing below, this investigation was personal.

The group arrested yesterday allegedly had a list of targets, sources have
told the Star, and the Toronto headquarters of the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service was one of them.

So were the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa and a smattering of other
high-profile, heavily populated areas. But since most of the suspects lived
in the GTA, it was the potential threat to the spy service's office and the
chaos an attack would create in the heart of Toronto that concerned CSIS
most.

According to sources, the suspects allegedly planned to target the spy
service because many of them had encountered agents early in the
investigation, when they were interviewed and put under surveillance. They
also were allegedly angered by media reports accusing CSIS of racial
profiling of Muslims.

Many of the agents were known to members of the group only by aliases, but
the belief that the office had been targeted led to months of unease among
CSIS staff, sources said.

Some of the group's members had even been spotted taking notes around the
building, and at least one had reportedly visited the basement, one source
told the Star.

The investigation began back in 2004, when CSIS was monitoring Internet
sites and tracing the paths of Canadians believed to have ties to
international terrorist organizations. Local youths espousing
fundamentalist views drew special attention, sources say.

Since it was created 21 years ago, the spy service's mandate has been to
protect Canada's security. It is not a police force; its agents don't carry
weapons, have no power of arrest and traditionally have preferred to stay
out of public view.

But CSIS does have a relationship with the RCMP, albeit one traditionally
fraught with turf wars and communication problems, and the focus of
criticism and concern since 9/11.

The two federal agencies work independently, but when CSIS is monitoring
someone who could be prosecuted criminally, the spy service notifies the
Mounties in what's known as an "advisory letter."


`We are seeing phenomena in Canada such as the emergence of homegrown
second and third generation terrorists'

Jack Hooper, CSIS deputy director


That happened in this case on Nov. 17, 2004.

Four months after authorities began to fear that Canada might have its own
homegrown terrorist cell, two Americans entered the picture.

Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi descent
who had attended high school in Ontario, and Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, a
student at Georgia Tech, boarded a Greyhound bus in Atlanta on March 6,
2005, and travelled to Toronto to meet "like-minded Islamic extremists," a
U.S. court document alleges.

At the time the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force was watching the U.S.
pair, Sadequee, according to court documents, was already on a no-fly list.
But they crossed the border uneventfully and met three people associated
with the group the Canadian authorities were watching.

Ahmed later told authorities that the meetings were to discuss U.S.
locations suitable for a terrorist strike, including oil refineries and
military bases, court documents state. They also allegedly talked about how
to dismantle the Global Positioning System in an effort to disrupt military
and commercial communications and traffic, and their plans to go to
Pakistan to train at "terrorist-sponsored camps." (The FBI claims Ahmed
"later travelled to Pakistan in an attempt to receive just such training.")

Ahmed is now in U.S. custody, indicted in March for material support of
terrorism. He has pleaded not guilty.

Sadequee is accused of making false statements in connection with a
terrorism investigation. He was arrested in April in Bangladesh and handed
over to American authorities - a transfer his lawyer later characterized in
court as being closer to a kidnapping than an arrest. Sadequee was flown to
Alaska, according to U.S. news reports, and, having waived a preliminary
hearing, consented to being transferred to Brooklyn, N.Y. He has been
denied bail and is awaiting trial.

Fahim Ahmad, who was arrested as part of yesterday's sweep, was living with
his wife and children in a Scarborough apartment in August 2005, while
authorities were watching him closely. The 22-year-old allegedly rented a
car for two Toronto-area men to go to the U.S.

The licence plate was flagged so it could be pulled over upon its return to
Canada, sources told the Star and court documents confirm. On Aug. 13, at
5:30 a.m., a student working with the Canada Border Services Agency at the
Peace Bridge in Fort Erie pulled over the white Buick that Ahmad had
rented, which was being driven by Yasin Mohamed, 24, of Toronto, with Ali
Dirie, 22, whose last address was in Markham, as a passenger.

The car was targeted because its plate number came back with the warning:
"Look out, possible narcotic involvement," on a customs database, court
documents state.

After the two were briefly questioned, a superintendent was called over,
and Dirie and Mohamed were told to wait outside the car as it was searched.

"The customs inspector noticed that Mohamed seemed to fidgeting with his
hands in his pockets, and unable to stand still despite being told to keep
his hands where the officers could see them," states the summary that was
read into the court record during a hearing last October.

Both appeared nervous, frequently looking at each other. At one point
Mohamed tried to push his back away from the wall where he was placed, the
documents state. It was at that point that the customs officer discovered a
loaded Highpoint .380 calibre handgun that Mohamed had tucked inside his
waistband. Ammunition, some of which did not match the guns the men were
bringing in, fell out of his pockets as he was being handcuffed.

Officers later found two loaded handguns taped to Dirie's inner thighs - a
Millennium PT 19mm and a .380 Calibre Jennings. In his socks they found a
magazine for a semi-automatic handgun and "several rounds of ammunition,"
according to the court transcripts.

Both men, who are landed immigrants, had minor criminal records and told
the court they were buying the guns for their own "protection." They
pleaded guilty last October and were both given two-year sentences.

"Whether they were mules, whether they were going to use them for their own
protection, which is all we have right now, we have nothing to indicate
that they were going to be sold," St. Catharines Crown attorney Ron Brooks
told the court, according to a transcript of the October sentencing hearing.

"But the bottom line is - the mayor of Toronto indicated fairly recently in
an interview - is that there's only one thing that you can use weapons of
that nature for, and it's either to kill somebody or to give them to
somebody else to kill somebody."

Ahmad, who rented the car, was not charged in the incident.

As to laying such as charge, "I think the only thing we'd be looking at
there is if they aided in the commission of the substantial offence. Did
they send them on this mission with a rented car? To my knowledge there was
not any information that would support the laying of a criminal charge in
that case," Niagara police Insp. Brian Eckhardt said in an interview
earlier this year.

"I'm sure it was looked at at the time, which is what we always do."


`I do believe that when the time comes, a number of these people will
attempt to do something quite serious.'

Dale Neufeld, retired CSIS deputy director


The Star contacted Ahmad last March to discuss the incident, but he refused
to meet or answer questions about why he rented the car for the two men.

"I don't want to be discussing this," Ahmad said. When asked about the car
rental, he replied: "The police and whatnot, they know my side of the story
and that's all that matters."

Mohamed and Dirie both declined the Star's request to be interviewed.
Mohamed's brother also said his family did not want to comment.



Although there was no public acknowledgement of this investigation, by last
fall, officials were beginning to send out frequent warnings about a
homegrown threat.

In the only interview CSIS director Jim Judd has given since taking the
helm of the service, he told the Star in September that homegrown terrorism
was a pressing concern mainly because it's so difficult to detect.

Unconnected to the case, but being watched closely during this time by
Canadian authorities, was the Netherlands investigation into the
assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and a young local extremist cell
dubbed the Hofstad Group.

Made up of mainly Dutch-born youths angered by van Gogh's critical
portrayal of Islam, Canadian authorities believed the group was eerily
similar to the Canadian group, sources say. They appeared to be
unsophisticated, disenfranchised youths, but the group became a growing
threat, killing van Gogh and forcing a number of political figures to go
into hiding or flee the country.

That the Canadian group shouldn't be underestimated was a message that hit
home.

Last winter, the investigation took a turn when some of the younger members
allegedly went north to what police were referring to as a "training camp."

By February this group was being viewed in police and intelligence circles
as Canada's greatest terrorism threat. Chiefs of Ontario police forces,
including Toronto's Bill Blair, met in Toronto for a high-level briefing.

While the public denials of any specific threat continued, hints were dropped.

During a Senate committee review of Canada's anti-terrorism legislation,
now-retired CSIS deputy director Dale Neufeld spoke at length about
Canadian-born radicalized youths.

"It's the second generation, the children of Muslims who are born in this
country. They have a very normal upbringing, according to our analysis, but
at some point in their teenage years or young 20s, they decide that radical
Islam is the path they want to take," Neufeld said.

"The other (concern) is young Canadians who are generally quite
disillusioned, which is again very disturbing because it's hard to detect
and hard to investigate. They're the kids who don't do well in high school,
but could do anything. They could become petty criminals. They could get
involved in the drug culture. They might join a motorcycle gang. We're now
seeing a number of examples where they decide to take up Islam in the
radical form.

"It's not just rhetoric. I do believe that when the time comes, a number of
these people will attempt to do something quite serious."

On Monday, as final preparations were being made for yesterday's arrests,
current CSIS deputy director Jack Hooper again spoke before senators of the
threat posed by young people radicalized at home.

"We are seeing phenomena in Canada such as the emergence of homegrown
second- and third-generation terrorists. These are people who may have
immigrated to Canada at an early age who become radicalized while in
Canada. They are virtually indistinguishable from other youth. They blend
into our society very well, they speak our language and they appear to be,
for all intents and purposes, well assimilated," Hooper said.

He talked about youths absorbing radical ideas from the Internet.

"You are satisfied from the information you have that the homegrown
terrorist is primarily looking at targets in Canada?" Senator Michael
Meighen asked.

The normally verbose Hooper answered with a curt, "Yes."

-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'