Intelligence

June 30, 2006

Kim Young-nam Denies Abduction by N.Korea

Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea

A man presumed to have been kidnapped by North Korea 28 years ago on Wednesday told reporters he was not the victim of an abduction but drifted out to sea and was rescued by a North Korean vessel. Kim Young-nam also told reporters his former wife Megumi Yokota, who was abducted by the North at the age of 13, later committed suicide and her remains were returned to Japan.

Kim, who was reunited with his mother on Wednesday, 28 years after he disappeared from a beach in North Jeolla Province, was giving a press conference in the North’s Mt.Kumgang Hotel. "In August 1978, I went to Sunyu island beach, but the two older friends with me started to become abusive toward me.” Kim told reporters. “To protect myself I took a wooden raft out to sea but fell asleep, and when I woke up I’d drifted out into open waters.” After being rescued by a North Korean vessel, Kim “went to the North,” he said.

Kim Young-nam, who disappeared from a beach in South Korea 28 years ago, speaks to reporters at the Mt.Kumgang Hotel in North Korea flanked by his mother and sister on Thursday. Kim says he drifted off and was rescued by a North Korean ship.

"I was frightened, but little by little I became closer to the people of the North, and my heart softened. After looking around from place to place, my perceptions of the North changed," Kim said at the tightly managed press conference. "Especially since I was able to study for free in the North, I thought it would be alright if I studied here and then returned to my hometown later. Now 28 years have come and gone."

Kim said Yokota was unstable even before they got married. “After giving birth her depression got worse and she showed signs of mental disturbance… until on April 13, 1994 she committed suicide in hospital," Kim said. "I met with Japanese government officials who traveled to Pyongyang in 2004 and gave them a detailed explanation” of the circumstances surrounding Yokota’s death, and handed over her remains. He said Tokyo’s claim that DNA tests show Yokota’s purported remains to be those of two other people were “clumsy and childish allegations.”

Kim appealed to reporters to stop using him and his family’s story “for impure political aims.” He said he wanted a quiet life and expressed hope his statement would close the matter.

The 45-year-old denied any knowledge of other South Koreans presumed to have been abducted at around the same time. “I really don't know," he said.

His life in the Korean Workers Party’s bosom was happy, he said, adding he “did not envy the lives of others” -- a reference to calls for his repatriation to the South. Asked if he would like to visit his hometown, Kim said, “Considering the situation that the North and the South face, it is premature to think about that. If the circumstances are right, I will visit.”

A graduate of Kim Il Sung National War College, Kim says he works “in the field of reunification.” He is believed to have worked training spies.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

June 30, 2006 at 12:57 AM in Japan | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Tales from Eurabia

The West and Islam | Tales from Eurabia | Economist.com

Jun 22nd 2006
From The Economist print edition
Contrary to fears on both sides of the Atlantic, integrating Europe's Muslims can be done

THIS week George Bush was in Vienna, doing his best to mend relations with his allies. The list of disputes between the United States and Europe remains long and familiar: Guantánamo, Iraq, Iran, the common agricultural policy. Less easy for Mr Bush to talk about, let alone fix, is the equally long list of different attitudes from which so many transatlantic tensions seem to spring—opposing prejudices on everything from capitalism and religiosity to Mr Bush's “war on terror”.

These underlying emotions—what a British historian, Sir Lewis Namier, once called “the music to which [political] ideas are a mere libretto”—occasionally converge around a particular issue, such as Guantánamo Bay or Hurricane Katrina. This can be unhelpful: Katrina made America look like a failed state, Guantánamo is not a typical example of American justice. Now a similar caricature—this time about Europe—is forming in America (see article). It is known as “Eurabia”, and it represents an ever-growing Muslim Europe-within-Europe—poor, unassimilated and hostile to the United States.

Two years ago, the White House's favourite Arabist scholar, Bernard Lewis, gave a warning that Europe would turn Muslim by the end of this century, becoming “part of the Arab West, the Maghreb”. Now there is a plethora of books with titles like “While Europe Slept” and “Menace in Europe” (see article). Stagnant Europe, goes the standard argument, cannot offer immigrants jobs; appeasing Europe will not clamp down on Islamofascist extremism; secular Europe cannot deal with religiosity (in some cities, more people go to mosques each week than to churches). Europe needs to study America's melting pot, where Muslims fare better.
Londonistan calling

Such advice gets short shrift from European leaders, who often blame Muslim militancy on American foreign policy. But something similar to Eurabia scares many Europeans too. Terrorism is part of it, thanks to the Madrid and London bombings (as well as September 11th). But it goes wider than that: the past two years have seen riots in France's banlieues, the uproar about Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, the murder of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch film-maker, and now the virtual exile (to America) of his muse, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Fears about “Londonistan” and so on have helped Europe's far right; on the other side of politics, a bizarre alliance has sprung up between the anti-war left and Islamic hardliners. But the respectable centre is split between France's strict integrationist approach (banning Muslim children from wearing head-scarves in state schools) and the more tolerant multiculturalism of Britain and the Netherlands. The debate about Turkey (and its 71m Muslims) joining the European Union is increasingly a Eurabian one. Meanwhile, at the centre of all this fuss Europe's Muslims are themselves riven by inter-generational arguments on everything from whether there is a European version of Islam to which cricket team to support.

Is Eurabia really something to worry about? The concept includes a string of myths and a couple of hard truths. Most of the myths have to do with the potency of Islam in Europe. The European Union is home to no more than 20m Muslims, or 4% of the union's inhabitants. That figure would soar closer to 17% if Turkey were to join the EU—but that, alas, is something that Europeans are far less keen on than Americans are. Even taking into account Christian and agnostic Europe's lousy breeding record, Muslims will account for no more than a tenth of west Europe's population by 2025. Besides, Europe's Muslims are not homogenous. Britain's mainly South Asian Muslims have far less in common with France's North African migrants or Germany's Turks than they do with other Britons.

Arguments about alienation are also more complicated than they first appear. Many European terrorists were either relatively well-off or apparently well-integrated. The Muslims who torched France's suburbs last year were the ones who seldom attend mosques. First-generation immigrants (with the strongest ties to the Muslim world) seem to be less radical than their European-educated sons and daughters. And the treatment of them is far from uniform either: for all the American charges of “appeasement”, the FBI is a downright softie compared with France's internal security services.
Give us jobs, education and a seat on the city council

Given these subtleties, perhaps the most dangerous myth is the idea that there is one sure-fire answer when it comes to assimilating Europe's Muslims. In some cases, integrationism goes too far (France's head-scarf ban was surely harsh); but multiculturalism can too (Britain is now reining in its Muslim schools). America's church-state divide and its tolerance of religious fervour are attractive, but its fabled melting pot is not a definitive guide either: many American Muslims are black, and many Arab-Americans are Christian. In some ways, a better comparison (in terms of numbers and closeness of homeland) is with Latinos—and nobody in Europe is (yet) talking about building a wall to keep Muslims out.

Yet amid all this hyperbole, two hard realities stand out. The first is the importance of jobs. In America, it is easy for a newcomer to get work and hard to claim welfare; in Europe the opposite is true. Deregulating labour markets is a less emotive subject than head-scarves or cartoons, but it matters far more.

Second, the future of Europe's Muslims, no less than that of America's Latinos, lies with the young. For every depressing statistic about integration—France's prisons hold nine times more young men with North African fathers than ones with French fathers—there are several reassuring ones: a quarter of young Muslim Frenchwomen are married to non-Muslim men; Muslims are flocking to British universities and even popping up in white bastions like the Tory party. In 50 years' time, Americans may be praising this generation of European Muslims for leading the enlightenment that Islam needed.

Europe's Islamic experience will be different from America's: geography and history have seen to that already. Integration will be hard work for all concerned. But for the moment at least, the prospect of Eurabia looks like scaremongering.

June 30, 2006 at 12:47 AM in Muslim background | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

June 28, 2006

Information Taken From 'The SAS in Action' - Peterhead Prison

Peterhead Prison Hostage Rescue

In parallel with adapting its role to a changed world overseas, the SAS found itself in some unexpected situations in the UK. One such was the Peterhead Prison siege in Scotland in October 1987. It was to lead to a rescue remarkable even by SAS standards.

Fifty dangerous prisoners, some serving long sentences for multiple murder and rape - men with nothing to lose - seized control of the prison's 'D' Block. Once they had got the riot out of their system, the majority gave themselves up, but a hard core of four or five men continued to resist. They held as hostage a 56-year-old prison officer with one kidney who needed drugs and medical attention to stabilise his condition. His worsening state, day by day, put the authorities under unenviable pressure.

The hard core group retreated into the roof space high in one corner of the building and roosted behind barricades, threatening to cut their hostage's throat if any attempt was made to take them. With regular rooftop performances they could ensure that their appeal to television and microphone would give them an audience beyond the prison governor. The stalemate continued for almost a week, during which the prison authorities invoked the help of Grampian Police. The police adopted a gradualist approach, their special reaction team armed with all that was necessary, remaining one side of the barricade, the prison rebels the other, constantly watched through fibre-optic lenses and other special security equipment.

During the proceeding months, there had been a series of prison disturbances in Scotland. The Peterhead stand-off, however, was dragging on a little too long. The stalemate might make sense on the spot but not in the larger world outside, particularly in Whitehall and Downing Street. After urgent talks between the Scottish Office, headed by Malcolm Rifkind and the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, another two-man advisory team was sent at police request from Hereford. The men set off by helicopter at about 10pm and arrived at the prison in the early hours of the following morning. Their remit was not to break the siege directly but to offer advice to the civil authorities and the local police force. The police believed that the task was one for the SAS. Their legal right to seek military assistance was copper-bottomed. Under the rules laid down for Military Aid to the Civil Power (MAC-P) a soldier breaks the law if he refuses to aid the civil police when they ask him to help. More generally, police forces know that they have the right to call on military power via the Whitehall bureaucracy if order breaks down to a point where they cannot control it.

The use of military power - with its implication of military firepower- within the realm, directed against British citizens has been an emotive topic for years. It still conjures up memories of 1911, when Home Secretary Winston Churchill used the Scots Guards with Maxim gun to suppress armed anarchists in London's East End; after which the Worcester Regiment opened fire on rioting rail strikers in Wales and 50,000 troops prepared to move on London or Liverpool, where three warships were also brought to bear from the Mersey.

In the great French student revolution of 1968 known as 'Les Evenements' rioters controlled much of Paris until the CRS riot squads used CS gas to clear the streets. The British view has always been that aside from Northern Ireland, resort to such a high profile of official force is alien and politically dangerous.

As a result, Britain does not have the benefits of a 'Third Force' specialising in civil commotion which goes beyond normal police control, yet falls short of armed insurrection. The only military team with experience of precisely targeted violence available at the time of Peterhead, and for long afterwards, was the SAS. British police forces, although armed with CS by 1987, were unready to use it in an enclosed space or at all, if possible.

One of the SAS Regiment's most enduring characteristics is its lack of inhibition about going for the heart of a problem without agonising. Peterhead was a task for a small, swift snatch squad using the weapons of surprise and speed plus a puff or two of CS (technically smoke rather than gas) to keep the opposition subdued during the few minutes required to retrieve the hostage.

The prisoners' prisoner, the advisory team noted, was the only bargaining chip left to a tiny handful of rioters still holding out in an area under continuous electronic surveillance. While the discussions continued, the SAS advisers arranged for carefully calculated explosive charges to be attached to various entry points into the wing. There was no need to make a hole in the roof. The prisoners had done that themselves as a way of reaching their television audience. The main assault line proposed by the adviser would require balance and cool nerve: it involved an exit through a skylight, a rope-assisted descent down a steeply pitched roof to a rain gutter followed by a walk of some yards, in the dark, un-roped, with a drop of around 80 feet to the yard below if anything went wrong. This was perceived by the SAS team as an entirely normal procedure; the police were not convinced.

There were more negotiations through the government's crisis management group, COBRE, in London with the Director of Special Forces, an SAS brigadier. Five days into the crisis, late on into the night of Friday 2 October, a regimental response team flew by Hercules to an airhead some miles from the prison. They brought their standard weapons - HK MP5 sub-machine-guns and Browning pistols - though this was not a task for which firearms would be needed. Their adviser, already on the scene, had arranged for a supply of police staves around 4 feet long instead.

It was well after midnight when the aircraft touched down north of Aberdeen. First light was only a few hours away and the unblinking gaze of television would then resume. The condition of the hostage was getting no better. Somehow, the rescue squad had to be inserted into the prison unobserved; break the deadlock, achieve a clean rescue and get out, still unseen by media and prisoners, by dawn.

The team first moved from the airhead by prison bus to the prison gymnasium. It was 4am. There were two hours of darkness left. From London, COBRE had given final assent to an SAS operation. They were now committed. Briefings were pared down to essential details. The snatch squad of four men would make the hazardous journey from skylight to prisoners' roof-hole, by way of the gutter. Back-up teams would blast a way into the floors below on each side of the building and follow through to close any escape route. Once rescued, the hostage would be brought out to the care of a reception party, which included a resuscitation team. Another group would receive the surrendering prisoners with handcuffs.

At around 5am, wearing CS masks and armed with their staves, the four-man assault team eased open the skylight and hauled themselves outward. It was a slippery, wet sort of morning to be on the tiles, or slates, of a Scottish prison. To walk the length of the gutter in the dark, with vision dangerously limited by a gas mask demanded a superhuman balance. With the 'good, solid Victorian' gutter creaking slightly under his rubber boots, the point man moved gently forward, aware that if things went wrong at this stage he could find himself dangling, like Buster Keaton, on the end of a very precarious hold indeed. Yet things were OK, he assured himself. He was nearly at the prisoners' hole now.

Things were not entirely OK. Across the yard to the right, the prison's B Block held several hundred men -- and not all of them were sleeping. 'Watch out, lads! They're coming after you!'

The voice that bellowed across the echoing space between the two buildings was one of the prisoners who had, in all probability, given himself up earlier in the siege. Before the lights could come on, before other voices joined the clamour, the SAS point man had reached the hole. So too, almost at the same moment, did one of the prisoners. The soldier thrust the 'flash-bang' stun grenade into the space separating them and as the prisoner staggered back, the soldier followed it up with a smouldering CS cartridge, then swung his legs over the void and dropped inside. One man threw a punch before the CS got to him. Soon those inside the roof were coughing and spluttering uncontrollably, eyes streaming. Small explosive charges around the building swept aside the barricades and announced the arrival of the follow-through teams.

The first of the rescue squad, who had tested the walk along the gutter, was back on the roof by now, hauling the hostage out to the clean air. He then half-carried, half-dragged the prison officer along the gutter to the point where the skylight rope crossed it. The rescued man, weakened by his ordeal as well as illness, was in no condition to get himself up the rope. He was dragged up the last stage of his uncomfortable road to freedom by the same SAS soldier who had brought him this far. As at Princes Gate, the rest were propelled along a line of soldiers.

'Move! Move!'

CS smoke was oozing round the rest of the wing now, tickling eyeballs and throats beyond the immediate combat zone, reviving memories, perhaps, of hard nights in Ballymurphy and Whiterock. But a prison officer's life had been saved and his captors restrained without loss of life or serious injury. This was not 1911, after all. Just five months before the furore at Gibraltar, this was a singularly neat example of the use of minimum force, without firearms, to resolve what was, in SAS eyes, a simple problem. The job had taken just six minutes from the moment the first soldier slipped through the skylight to the moment when the hostage, his face marked with cuts, was reunited with his family in a secure, guarded area. A few legal formalities - Scottish legal formalities, this time - had to be observed. Statements were given to the police, explaining, justifying what was done and how. The soldiers slipped away to their bus and their waiting C130 after just ninety minutes on Scottish soil. Even for Scots on the team, it was long enough - given the circumstances. They were home in Hereford in time for a second breakfast, in time to hear all about it on the morning radio news.

June 28, 2006 at 05:03 PM in SAS | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Special forces soldiers killed during daring raid

This story is understandably light on detail, but it appears an SAS snatch squad (8 ?) + 30 Gurkhas were ambushed and managed to hold off 75 Taliban until rescued, but lost two.

Special forces soldiers killed during daring raid - World - Times Online

By Michael Evans, Defence Editor

The two special forces soldiers killed during an hour-long firefight in southern Afghanistan were part of a daring raid on a Taleban stronghold in which four key commanders on the "Most Wanted" list were seized.

The details of the "snatch" operation emerged as the next of kin of the two special forces soldiers were told of their deaths. Their names are not going to be released at the request of their families.

The SAS, the Royal Marines’ Special Boat Service (SBS) and the newly formed Special Forces Support Group, consisting of troops from the 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment, were all involved in the largest covert operation launched in southern Afghanistan since British troops were deployed there last month.

Defence sources said there had been intelligence that four key Taleban leaders were in a compound in the village of Sangin in the far north of Helmand province, where 3,300 British troops are now based.

The special forces "snatch squad" was backed up by two companies of about 100 paratroopers from the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

The soldiers from 3 Para launched an attack on the compound, providing covering fire as the snatch squad moved in and grabbed the four Taleban leaders. They were described as "high-value targets".

At that stage there had been no British casualties and the secret mission appeared to have been a success.

However, under the detailed planning for the operation, the snatch squad with the soldiers from 3 Para were to withdraw rapidly in Land Rovers and rendezvous with a quick-reaction force, waiting south of Sangin village. The quick-reaction force consisted of about 30 Gurkhas and other paratroopers armed with 105mm light guns, the only artillery the British forces have taken to Afghanistan.

The defence sources said that as the two units were approaching each other in the pitch dark, they were ambushed by dozens of Taleban fighters who must have been contacted following the successful snatch of four of their leaders. Some reports suggested there were at least 75 Taleban fighters, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, machineguns and AK47 Kalashnikov rifles.

The sources said that in the dark it was unclear exactly how many Taleban were involved, but they emphasised that they held the advantage as they were opening fire on the British troops from well-concealed ambush positions.

A full-scale battle ensued, with British troops coming under sustained fire for more than a hour. One soldier involved in the battle told The London Evening Standard: "We stood and fought very hard."

During the firefight, two of the Taleban commanders seized from the compound managed to escape, and the other two were killed. The defence sources said the two dead Taleban commanders were probably hit in the crossfire.

It was during the firefight that the two special forces soldiers were also killed. One of them was believed to be part of the special forces support group which was set up last year to provide extra firepower for SAS and SBS operations. The SAS and SBS are operating together in southern Afghanistan.

The British troops called for airpower to attack the Taleban ambush positions, and the major assault only came to an end when an RAF Harrier GR7 from Kandahar and an Army Air Corps Apache attack helicopter arrived overhead to pound the Taleban fighters. Up to 30 Taleban were killed, according to the defence sources.

Brigadier Ed Butler, commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, said: "The two soldiers [who died] acted with great courage and outstanding personal bravery, given the odds they faced."

The plan had been to take the Taleban leaders down to the British base at Camp Bastion at Lashgar Gah for interrogation. However, despite the escape by two of them and the deaths of the other two, Brigadier Butler said the operation had been a success, and would help to restore security to the people of Sangin, acknowledged to be a Taleban hotspot.

Intelligence sources said it was estimated that about 1,000 Taleban fighters had come into Helmand province from Pakistan in the last few weeks, underlining the scale of the challenge the British troops are now facing.

June 28, 2006 at 04:52 PM in SAS | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

June 27, 2006

SAS troops killed in midnight ambush

SAS troops killed in midnight ambush - World - Times Online

By Tim Albone in Kabul and Michael Evans, Defence Editor
TWO SAS soldiers were killed in a midnight ambush in southern Afghanistan during an hour-long firefight with the Taleban, which ended only after an RAF Harrier and an army Apache attack helicopter bombarded hostile positions.

The battle erupted on Monday as an undercover unit of SAS soldiers was operating on the outskirts of Sangin in the northern part of Helmand province. The unit came under sustained fire, and as the special forces troops took up defensive positions, they called for back-up. The soldiers who were killed were on foot.

Defence sources said that a quick-reaction force from 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery arrived in Land Rovers, equipped with 105mm light artillery. The rescue force also came under fire and one of its Land Rovers was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Last night the Ministry of Defence would not release either the names of the soldiers or confirm their regiment until next of kin had been informed. A third soldier was seriously wounded.

As part of the back-up, a Harrier GR7 and an Apache attack helicopter provided air support, targeting Taleban positions, and the 105mm light guns were also used. The deployment of air power and artillery underlined the scale of the ambush and the determination of the British to seize control of Sangin, which military sources described as “a toxic mixture” of Taleban and drug traffickers.

While these are the first members of the SAS believed to have been killed in Afghanistan, the British Army has now lost three of its soldiers in the Sangin area since deploying to Helmand a few weeks ago. Captain James Philippson of 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery was the first to be killed in Sangin. He was shot while trying to rescue colleagues from an ambush two weeks ago. Ten have been killed in Afghanistan since the British were first deployed there, in November 2001.

The Taleban, who, it is believed, lost several fighters in the attack on Monday, immediately claimed responsibility for the deaths, with Qari Mohammed Yousaf, its purported spokesman, telling the Reuters news agency that his fighters carried out the ambush.

Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, offered his deepest condolences to the families of the latest victims. He had hinted that it was a special forces operation when he said that the soldiers were not part of the Helmand battle group.

The district of Sangin, in the mountainous north of the province, is known to be a hotbed of Taleban activity. The steep valley sides provide ideal places from which to launch ambushes. The area has no roads, only dusty tracks, and Taleban fighters know the terrain well.

The British were airlifted in by Chinook helicopters from Camp Bastion, the main British base, only weeks ago and are still learning the terrain. Movements are hampered by sweltering heat, of about 45C (113F).

The troops are particularly vulnerable to rocket attacks and roadside bombs because the armoured Land Rovers that they drive were designed for Northern Ireland and offer only light Kevlar protection. However, military sources emphasised that “no one died inside a Land Rover” on Monday.

In other violence, two Afghan soldiers and 11 Taleban rebels were killed in fighting 20 miles north of Sangin in the town of Musa Qala. In the province of Uruzgan, which borders Helmand, a further ten militants were killed after their compound was stormed by coalition and Afghan forces.

In Ghazni province police and Taleban clashed, leaving three militants dead. A suicide attack targeting a German military convoy in the province of Kunduz killed two Afghan civilians as well as the bomber.

BRITISH FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN
# There are 3,300 troops of 16 Air Assault Brigade — which includes 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment — and eight Apache helicopters, at Lashkar Gah, Helmand province

# 1,000 troops are in Kabul with the HQ staff of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force

# 200 RAF personnel with six Harrier GR7 bombers are in Kandahar

# Total military presence: about 5,000, including Royal Engineers building Camp Bastion, the main base in Helmand province

# Total casualties: ten since November 2001. Five have died from hostile action

June 27, 2006 at 11:45 PM in SAS | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

June 19, 2006

British agents trace 7/7 terror links to smalltown America

British agents trace 7/7 terror links to smalltown America - Britain - Times Online

By Daniel McGrory
No 10 rejects calls for inquiry into bombings as evidence emerges of extremists’ role in global terror network
BRITISH agents are operating in the United States to trace links with Islamic extremists from England who recruit Muslims to fight for terrorist groups abroad.

The British-led investigation has played a part in identifying a number of US-based terrorists and helped the authorities in Washington to break up an al-Qaeda cell operating in Falls Church, Virginia.

The agents are particularly keen to discover if the visitors included Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the July 7 suicide bombers, who is alleged to have travelled to America’s East Coast to meet fellow militants and stage a series of attacks on synagogues.

Khan was considered such a threat that he was banned from returning to America two years before the attack on London, according to a book written by a US intelligence specialist.

The disclosure, made by the award-winning author Ron Suskind in an extract from The One Percent Doctrine in The Times yesterday, led to calls for a full public inquiry into intelligence lapses before the attacks on July 7 which killed 52 people in London.

Intelligence sources in America insist that the man they were alerted to was Khan.

However, Tony Blair’s spokesman said the claims would not lead to any further investigation by the Intelligence and Security Committee, which last month cleared MI5 of serious errors, or any other form of inquiry. “The [Security and Intelligence] Committee’s conclusion is that there was not an intelligence failure,” he said.

The Conservatives have called for an independent inquiry into the July 7 bombings, while the Liberal Democrats and victims’ relatives want a full public inquiry.

Neither the FBI nor police would comment on the investigations into Khan’s alleged visits to the US in 2002, but, in Falls Church yesterday, residents blamed “foreign agitators” for encouraging young men from the city’s Muslim community to join extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda.

In the Falls Plaza shopping mall, most preferred to chat about their historic city’s latest civic award for its floral displays and not its reputation as the jihad capital of America.

Over the past few months, 11 men who regularly attended the same Islamic Centre in Falls Church have been convicted of terrorism charges. Seven reportedly went to training camps in Pakistan, including one used by Khan.

Their trials exposed a network stretching from this placid commuter belt serving the US capital ten miles away, passing through British cities and on to jihadi camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A twelfth man from this city of barely 11,000 residents, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was jailed for 30 years in March for plotting to assassinate President Bush and being a member of al-Qaeda. FBI investigators claim in The One Percent Doctrine that Abu Ali, 24, was in regular e-mail contact with Khan.

The latest trial of the “Virginia 11” led to a junior school teacher, Ali Asad Chandia, being convicted on June 6 for giving aid to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, which is banned in both the US and Britain. A number of Scotland Yard officers and British intelligence agents gave evidence.

Like Khan, who worked as a teaching assistant in Leeds, Chandia, 29, was popular with parents and pupils, and his family deny he had any links with British extremists or trained at a camp in Pakistan.

Prosecutors described how Chandia had worked as a chauffeur for a London-based terrorism organiser, Mohammed Ajmal Khan, who was jailed for nine years in March in Britain after admitting shipping weapons to Pakistan.

Chandia was also described as the personal assistant to a charismatic young preacher in Falls Church, Ali al-Tamimi — a US-born biology graduate — who in January was sentenced to life plus 70 years, without parole, for encouraging his followers to go to Afghanistan to fight US-led coalition troops.

The National Security Agency is accused of bugging mosques and private homes where al-Tamimi preached, including the Dar al-Hijrah centre on the edge of Falls Church. This glass-fronted mosque acquired its notoriety in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when it was discovered that the imam, Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki, was the spiritual mentor to two of the hijackers.

The imam was never charged but moved to Yemen. His successor, Joharri Abdul Malik, says: “The community is disturbed by what previously happened here,” but believes many of the “Virginia 11” were jailed for “having big mouths”.

“They made inappropriate and irreponsible comments,” the imam said. “Some did go to training camps but none fired a shot in anger, and once they were in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan and saw what it was really like, they soon had a change of heart and came home. They are guilty of thought crimes.”

Imam Joharri is angered that the FBI did not approach community leaders to discuss concerns that extremists from Britain and elsewhere were trying to recruit youngsters from the area. “If the authorities knew this was going on, why weren’t we warned?” he asked.

He described how Ali al-Tamimi, frustrated at his failure to take control of the mosque, led a breakaway group of his followers to a trading estate on the opposite end of the city to set up the Dar alArqam Centre for Islamic Information. The building included the offices of two charities outlawed by the US as fronts for terrorism organisations.

After al-Tamimi’s conviction, what was left of his group abandoned the Dar al-Arqam centre, which no longer has any links with fundamentalist groups. FBI sources say they are unsure what has happened to some of his followers.

THE PROPOSALS

Among the measures suggested by the task force which have yet to be taken up:

# A public inquiry into 7/7 bombings
# Rapid rebuttal unit to combat Islamophobia
# National resource unit for development of curricula in mosques and madrassas, and guidelines for teachers
# Programmes to “upskill” current imams
# Muslim “beacon centres” to help small mosques and cultural centres
# Set up and fund network of Muslim safety forums to promote meaningful partnership between community and police
# Ministerial review of raids, stop and search and armed police activity
# Correct the “alien” image of Islam in the national curriculum

June 19, 2006 at 10:02 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

US 'issued alert' on 7/7 bomber in 2003

US 'issued alert' on 7/7 bomber in 2003 - Britain - Times Online

By Daniel McGrory
Fresh calls for public inquiry into London bombings after publication of American book claiming terrorist was known

THE leader of the July 7 suicide bombers was considered such a dangerous threat that he was banned from flying to America two years before the attack in London, according to a book written by a US intelligence specialist.

Although MI5 has always denied knowing that Mohammad Sidique Khan was a potential danger, the CIA is alleged to have discovered in 2003 that he was planning attacks on American cities.

The disclosures are made in a book by the award-winning author Ron Suskind that is serialised today in The Times.

The claims contradict evidence from Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the Director-General of MI5, to the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee that Khan had never been listed as a terror threat before the attack that killed 52 innocent people.

A senior British security source has told The Times that they were aware of the allegations but said that they were “untrue and one of the many myths that have grown up around Khan”.

However, the disclosures will add to demands for Tony Blair to agree to a full public inquiry into intelligence lapses before the attack on July 7. Families of the victims, preparing to mark the first anniversary, are among those calling for an independent investigation to uncover all that British Intelligence was told about the suicide bombers by international security agencies.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “This new information shows that there is an unarguable case for an independent inquiry that will enable us to ensure any weakness in our security and intelligence system are put right before we face any further terrorist threat.”

Ibrahim Mogra, chairman of the mosque and community affairs committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that the arguments for a public inquiry were now overwhelming.

“In light of this latest claim the case for a public inquiry becomes even more clear. There are things we are not being told about what our intelligence services knew, and if the US intelligence services knew something they should bear some of the responsibility for the attacks,” he said.

The parliamentary inquiry into 7/7 found that Khan and two of the other suicide bombers were known in some form to MI5. It said that Khan was regarded as a peripheral figure.

However, Suskind, in his book The One Percent Doctrine, says that CIA agents found evidence that Khan was in contact with Islamic extremists in the US about a plot to blow up a number of synagogues on the US East Coast. He alleges that Khan made at least two trips to America to finalise attack plans and that US security officials insisted the CIA’s Counter-Terrorist Centre shared its information with a British intelligence official in London.

The book claims that Dan Coleman, who led the FBI’s investigation into al-Qaeda, had read detailed files of Khan’s many telephone calls and e-mails, beginning in 2002, to a number of US based al-Qaeda-trained militants living in New York and Virginia.

Khan, a primary school teaching mentor from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, is alleged to have been in contact with a student from Falls Church in Virginia, who in March was sentenced to 30 years for a plot to assassinate George Bush.

E-mail transcripts monitored by the National Security Agency (NSA) show, says Suskind, that Khan, 30, was in direct contact with Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24. NSA intercepts also allegedly show that Khan was in touch with the US-based extremists he later met in Pakistan.

Investigations have shown that on his arrival in the US, Khan gave a false address to immigration officials about where he was staying during his visits.

Mr Coleman, known to colleagues as The Professor because of his knowledge of US al-Qaeda sympathisers, said that Khan was “a very dangerous character” who should be closely watched. He says that he does not know if Britain acted on this warning.

The CIA claims that it had only 36 hours’ warning in March 2003 that Khan had booked a flight to New York. The FBI said that it did not have the manpower to follow Khan in the US so it placed his name on a “no-fly list” to stop him from leaving Britain, according to the book.

This year, a leading US Senator, Charles E. Schumer, commenting on newspaper reports in New York that US authorities had tipped off British Intelligence, said: “This is the British version of pre-9/11, where a country receives a generalised warning and ignores it with terrible consequences.”

Suskind told The Times: “British intelligence was certainly told about Khan in March and April 2003.

“This was a significant set of contacts that Khan had, and ones of much less importance were exchanged on a daily basis between the CIA and MI5. British authorities were sent a very detailed file.

“This demonstrates a catastrophic breakdown in communication across the Atlantic.”

The alert on Khan coincided with an order for New York police to be on the lookout for improvised chemical devices on the Subway. Khan was not linked to this alleged plot.

June 19, 2006 at 12:56 AM in MI5 | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Act now: London's police are in paralysis

Telegraph | Opinion | Act now: London's police are in paralysis

By David Davis
(Filed: 18/06/2006)

The Metropolitan Police is London's, and indeed Britain's, first line of defence against terrorism. Its role is vital, and its success is a fundamental part of the whole anti-terror strategy of our country.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is pivotal in that success. His job is one of the most difficult in modern policing. He must create the systems, the organisation, the command structure and the rules of engagement to deal with the terrorist menace.

He must provide strong leadership under the most trying circumstances. He must exercise impeccable judgment, often at times of extreme stress.

He must inspire public confidence at the very time our enemies are trying to instil panic and fear. If he fails, the consequences for our battle with terrorism will be severe.

The Met is in paralysis, plagued by internal turmoil, damaging leaks and uncertainty over the future of its Commissioner.

The slow release of the IPPC reports on the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes means that they are hanging over Sir Ian Blair's head. Until the reports are published, and a decision has been made for him to stay or go, the Commissioner is hobbled.

In the past few months, we have witnessed a mounting atmosphere of chaos and uncertainty, with newspaper after newspaper carrying "leaked" versions of the IPCC reports into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, with growing criticism of the handling of the Forest Gate operation, and with Liam Byrne, the police minister, giving Sir Ian only the most lukewarm support.

In many respects Sir Ian has been his own worst enemy. He has made a number of widely criticised judgments, from an expensive change of the Met's logo when he first arrived, through his insensitive comments on the Soham murders, to his extraordinary decision to tape his telephone conversation with the Attorney General.

This was compounded last week by embarrassment over the Kate Moss affair after he boasted he was going to "crack down" on middle class crime.

These are unhappy events, but it is probable that he can survive and recover from them. The real issue is whether he can survive the potential criticisms that may be levelled in the two IPCC reports on the Stockwell shooting.

If we are to believe the "leaked" versions of these reports, the criticisms are pretty serious. It is alleged that there were errors and mistakes at every level.

It has been said that the command and control systems were flawed, and this was compounded by the absence of any surface to underground communication systems.

It is said that the commands given were ambiguous, and that the rules of engagement that allowed Mr Menezes to be shot dead were not clear enough.

As a result, a number of questionable decisions were made. For example, if it was really thought the suspect was carrying a bomb or other weapons, why let him onto a bus and subsequently onto the tube?

Other operational failures are supposed to have occurred, from failure to deploy the firearms team early enough, through to a failure to pass on to them the doubts of the surveillance team.

Any of these criticisms would be serious for Sir Ian and his team; but it would be quite wrong to come to judgment based on unverified "leaks".

But every day that passes without resolution sees public confidence in the Commissioner bleeding away.

At least one senior officer at Scotland Yard has described the Metropolitan Police as having been left "in paralysis" since receiving the IPCC report, a viewpoint reinforced by recurrent newspaper reports of rows and reassignments in the senior ranks in the last two months.

The handling of the Forest Gate raid and its aftermath has also reinforced this perception. It is probable that Scotland Yard had no choice but to carry out the operation once it received the intelligence.

The issues around the operation itself will only properly be resolved by the IPCC's full inquiry.

But it is hard to justify the incredibly undisciplined briefing by police officers that went on around the raid, first against the family, and then later against MI5 and each other.

It was at best inappropriate, at worst improper. Sir Ian Blair should have been the only voice speaking on this subject, and he should have limited what was given out to the minimum necessary.

The fact that this could not happen demonstrates the weakness created by the corrosive state of affairs today.

The only solution to this is for the IPCC reports to be put into the public domain as soon as possible, which in practice means the next two weeks.

Very soon we will be into July, with the terrible anniversaries of the attacks on the 7th and 21st and of Mr Menezes's death on the 22nd.

Publication then will be difficult and may even be seen as insensitive. But it is inconceivable that this current state of paralysis can be allowed to continue through July, particularly with the continuing threat of terrorism very much still there.

So the Government must honour Charles Clarke's promise, and publish the reports. Some will say that they cannot be published because the CPS might be bringing prosecutions.

If so, it is likely that redaction of the relevant parts will protect the rights of any defendants while still allowing the public to understand what happened on those fateful days. Any strictly technical legal issues could be dealt with by publication under Parliamentary privilege.

Putting these reports in the public domain will allow this episode to be brought to a close. Either Sir Ian Blair will be exonerated, or he will be replaced.

In the latter event, the Government has no shortage of good candidates that will take a grip of the Met, restore morale, and re-establish its directions.

This approach will be fair to Sir Ian, but, even more importantly, fair to the British people, who deserve the highest standards of protection against the terrorist threat that still menaces our nation.

June 19, 2006 at 12:47 AM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Paras strike deep into the Taliban heartland

Telegraph | News | Paras strike deep into the Taliban heartland

By Thomas Harding in Kabul
(Filed: 19/06/2006)

British forces have scored dramatic successes against the Taliban during a lightning push deep into the lawless regions of southern Afghanistan, senior commanders revealed yesterday.

The scale and effect of the operation had not previously emerged but the British force in southern Afghanistan has advanced 75 miles into the insurgents' stronghold leaving dozens of Taliban dead.

Despite suffering one dead and two seriously wounded last week, Operation Mountain Thrust has forced the insurgents out of villages and recovered areas not held by security forces for 30 years.

The full range of military hardware has been used against the Islamist guerrillas, including artillery from 7 Parachute Regiment and the Royal Horse Artillery and four attacks mounted by Apache helicopters using machineguns, missiles and rockets.

In one engagement troops pinned down by heavy gunfire called in artillery for the first time since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The extent of the battle was illustrated yesterday when the military reported killing six Taliban fighters who had been firing mortars at a police station from the Kajaki dam in northern Helmand. After observing the gun crew for several days, the Paras obliterated their position in a matter of seconds with their own mortars late on Saturday night.

Led by troops from 3 Bn the Parachute Regiment, the operation has pushed into villages up to 75 miles north of the British base at Camp Bastion and has killed up to 40 Taliban fighters.

Brig Butler
Brig Butler: battle against the Taliban is ‘winnable’

Platoon houses, containing about 30 Paras, have been set up in at least five villages with troops driving out the Taliban and preventing them from returning.

While British commanders are reluctant to trumpet the early success of the mission, one senior officer said the Para battlegroup had been doing a "cracking job".

Brig Ed Butler, commander of the 3,300-strong 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has been leading the attacks, said there had been successes "from a security and tactical point of view".

"We very much have a window of opportunity which is emerging now. We are not just sitting in our bases," he said. "We are getting out and about and we are engaging with the locals." The battle against the Taliban was "winnable" although that would not necessarily be this year.

"The key thing to me is that as long as we have the popular support back home for this operation we can do it. If we lose the support back home and it becomes another Iraq then that will make our job as soldiers that much harder."

The British hope to drive out the Taliban from Helmand province by the end of the summer, paving the way for reconstruction teams to enter previously no-go zones. It is then hoped that they will be able to turn farmers away from growing opium, construct roads, windmills and wells and restore the rule of law.

Brig Butler said that the Taliban had not launched an offensive in the spring and with summer progressing there was still no suggestion of a "massing" of insurgents.

"They have got fewer and fewer places to go and hide," he added.

Taliban strength in the area has been estimated at more than 1,000. Some leadership is provided by mullahs hiding in mountains bordering Pakistan. British commanders described the terrorists as reasonably well armed, organised and motivated. They are also said to be equipped for suicide attacks or roadside bombs.

Brig Nick Pope, commander of 1 Signal Brigade based in Kabul, who had just returned from visiting troops in Helmand, said soldiers had advanced into the insurgents' "back yard".

"We have put the terrorists on the back foot and seized the initiative," he said.

June 19, 2006 at 12:44 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

June 13, 2006

Will N.Korea Really Launch a Missile?

Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea

A string of reports in the international press point to an imminent test of North Korea's new long-range Taepodong 2 missile, but the South Korean government and military sources say there are no signs that is going to happen. So what is the true state of affairs?

Reuters and the AFP ran reports on Tuesday that said North Korea is preparing to test a ballistic missile that could reach the U.S. and the test could take place next week. Rumors of preparations for a test launch began to surface at the end of last month, and it is assumed that the reports were referring to a test of a Taepodong-type missile. With an estimated radius of 6,700 km, the Taepodong 2 can hit Alaska, and the newer model with a lighter warhead, some say, could have a range of 10,000 km, meaning it could strike the U.S. mainland.

One government official said North Korea “could play the missile test card at any time as a protest against the U.S., Japan, or South Korea." If the North really intends to test-fire the missile, it would need to put the weapon on a 40 m high launch platform and load it with fuel; neither is known to have taken place. Additionally, it would first have to ban civilian ships from the surrounding waters to ensure that there are no accidents and deploy climate radar and tracking stations, sources said.

Intelligence experts are saying it is worth paying close attention to Japan’s movements in regard to the chances of a missile test. Japan is most sensitive to long-range missile launches and will be the first to react if there are actual signs of preparations. Over the last few years, Japan has been the first to report news related to North Korean missile tests, whether short-range or long.

The Japanese press was also the first to break the news last month of Pyongyang’s rumored preparations for a test launch of Taepodong 2 missiles, but now Tokyo is being cautious. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said his country was “collecting information on military movements of our neighbor countries and analyzing them, but we don’t have the understanding that a missile test is imminent.”

(englishnews@chosun.com )

June 13, 2006 at 09:07 PM in Japan | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

June 03, 2006

Men attended `training camp': Sources

TheStar.com - Men attended `training camp': Sources

un. 3, 2006. 07:25 AM
MICHELLE SHEPHARD, SURYA BHATTACHARYA AND STAN JOSEY
STAFF REPORTERS

A group of Canadian teenagers and young men in their 20s, accused by police of being members of a suspected homegrown terrorist cell, will appear in court this morning to face accusations that they plotted to attack Canadian targets, the Toronto Star has learned.

Some members of the group allegedly attended a "training camp" north of the city where they made a video imitating military warfare, and the suspects allegedly had acquired weapons and listed targets in Ontario, sources told the Star.

Some members of the group allegedly attended a "training camp" north of the city where they made a video imitating military warfare, and the suspects allegedly had acquired weapons and listed targets in Ontario, sources told the Star.

Led by the RCMP's anti-terrorism task force, more than 400 police officers from across Ontario made the series of arrests last night and early this morning, taking as many as a dozen suspects into custody at a heavily guarded Pickering police station. Sources said there was a concern that some of the group's members had acquired explosives.

The arrested men were driven one by one into the Ajax Pickering community police station at Brock and Kingston Rds. and were taken into the underground garage for processing. Unmarked police cars lined up outside the door, with one car being allowed in approximately every 15 minutes.

Members of the Durham region tactical unit were stationed at one-metre intervals providing a security wall around the police property. Just before 11:30 p.m., five vans belonging to Toronto police's elite Emergency Task Force unit and the force's canine unit converged on a Scarborough home.

The arrests were expected to continue overnight and early this morning, sources say.

Sources told the Star that the group had been watched by Canada's spy service since 2004 and a criminal investigation by the RCMP began last year.

It's not known specifically why police acted last night and none of the allegations have been proven in court.

The group is being charged under the new anti-terrorism legislation introduced into the criminal code in December 2001, after the 9/11 attacks. It's only the second time the terrorism laws have been used in Canada.

Mohammad Momin Khawaja, an Ottawa-area software operator, was the first person arrested on terrorism charges and will stand trial in January for his alleged connection to a British group.

Sources close to last night's investigation are calling the suspects arrested yesterday a "homegrown" group, meaning they are Canadian citizens or long-time residents, raised and allegedly radicalized without leaving the country. It's a phenomenon Canadian officials have been warning about for the past few years.

The London bombings on the subway and a double-decker bus last July were blamed on a homegrown British group.

Although the RCMP would not talk about the arrests last night, community sources confirmed the names of three of the men now behind bars.

Fahim Ahmad, a 22-year-old Scarborough father, was arrested late yesterday. He allegedly rented a car last summer for two men who were later caught bringing weapons across the border into Canada.

The arrests of two other men from Mississauga — brothers-in-law Ahmad Ghany and Zakaria Amara — shocked neighbours and family who said they couldn't believe the allegations.

"I think they have it wrong. Those guys have nothing to do with (terrorism)," said Scarborough Imam Aly Hindy.

Hindy has been a high profile critic of the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service, accusing the federal agency of targeting Muslims who criticize the foreign policies of Western governments.

He believes this is what led to the arrests yesterday.

"Because they are young people, and they are Muslims, they are saying it's terrorism," he said in an interview last night.

Ahmad had only moved into the Scarborough area, near Sheppard Ave. and Markham Rd., a few weeks ago.

"This is a good community and we're very shocked by the news. We leave our whole family here for the whole day, including our small children, and come back to this," said local resident Qadeer Mohammed.

"This very shocking, and the whole community will be affected."

The case is critical for Canada's international reputation and will be scrutinized worldwide as it works its way through the courts.

There has been cause for skepticism concerning the ability of Canada's intelligence and police services to prosecute security cases. Since 9/11, the majority of high-profile security investigations have ended in international embarrassment, such as the acquittal of suspects in the Air India bombing case and the Maher Arar affair which raised questions about international information sharing, exposed an inexperienced federal police force and left an Ottawa man broken after his deportation, detention and torture in Syria.

Then there was Project Thread, a 2003 joint immigration-RCMP case touted as the dismantling of an Al Qaeda cell, but ending in a routine immigration case that sent Pakistani students home branded terrorists.

With files from Bob Mitchell

June 3, 2006 at 08:48 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

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

TheStar.com - 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."

Michelle Shephard covers terrorism and security issues for the Toronto Star. She can be reached at mshephard@thestar.ca or 416-869-4391.

June 3, 2006 at 08:47 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home