thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
 Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:12 pm Post subject: Quebec man arrested in terrorist bomb plot |
 |
|
| Quote: |
TORONTO -- A man arrested northeast of Montreal for allegedly planning a terrorist bombing outside Canada could face additional charges depending on the results of a search at his home, the RCMP said Thursday.
Said Namouh, 35, was to appear in court this morning to face charges of conspiring to detonate an explosive device. The arrest of the landed immigrant coincided with three related arrests in Vienna, Austria.
The Quebecer is suspected of having links to the Global Islamic Media Front, an al-Qaeda propaganda network. Terrorism researcher Rita Katz, who has been tracking the group, said other Canadians are involved. "The Global Islamic Media Front is individuals that are spread around the world, and there are several of them in Canada," she said.
Police seized documents from Namouh's home in Maskinonge, in the Mauricie region on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, but the RCMP would not say whether the search had turned up any explosives, detonators or bomb components.
"The investigation is still ongoing and because we did a search warrant [Wednesday] at his residence, we seized different items and it could result in other charges," said Corporal Elaine Lavergne.
"I cannot tell you right now what we found in his residence but we might be able to tell you later on," she said. "For sure there is paper, documents and things like that."
But asked whether there was evidence he was assembling a bomb, she said "for now I'm not going to confirm anything but it's coming, we'll be able to tell you later on what we seized exactly."
Police said the investigation had turned up no direct threat to Canada. But the case does appear to be linked to a threat distributed by the Global Islamic Media Front to bomb Austria and Germany.
In March, the GIMF issued an online video in Arabic with German subtitles that said Muslim "soldiers of God" would attack Germany and Austria unless the countries pulled their troops out of Afghanistan and withdrew from NATO.
Two Austrian men and a woman were arrested in Vienna on Wednesday in connection with the video. One of them is believed to be the head of the GIMF's German operations, known by the handle Gharib al-Diyar.
At about the same time, the RCMP took Namouh into custody at 7 a.m. without incident. Austrian Interior Minister Rudolf Gollia said the man arrested in Canada had been in contact with the Austrians. "They communicated a number of times through Internet forums and by e-mail."
In Maskinonge, news that a local resident had been arrested on terrorism-related charges came as a shock. "Maskinonge is in the middle of nowhere. It's pretty incredible. I'm falling off my chair," said Gianni Corbo, owner of a popular restaurant, La Caillette.
Residents of the town had noticed a lot of "RCMP-type" unmarked police cars in the area over the past two months, he said. "We were always wondering what they were monitoring, but now I'm putting two and two together," he said.
The surveillance continued around the clock. "One of my customers asked them why they were there, but they did not want to say."
Nobody contacted in the town Thursday had heard of Namouh, whom Austrian authorities have described as of African descent. "I'm a native of Maskinonge, I have the most popular business around, but I've never heard that name before," Corbo said.
Immigrants are very rare in the town about 100 kilometres northeast of Montreal. "My family's Italian and we're about the only immigrants. There are no Chinese or Arabs that I know of," he said.
The investigation was conducted jointly with Austrian authorities. In Canada, it was handled by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team in Quebec, a multi-agency anti-terrorism squad set up after the 9/11 attacks.
"We received information from the Austrian authorities that he was involved in something there with other people, and from there we started an investigation here. We located him, and we were able to arrest him with the information we received from the Austrian police service," Lavergne said.
"He's charged here, he'll face the justice here and he might be going in prison here, we're not talking about extradition for now."
Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Safety, commended the RCMP-led team for the arrest and reminded Canadians they were not immune from the threat of terrorism.
"I am aware that an individual has been charged with conspiracy to build, deliver and detonate a bomb outside of Canada," the minister said. "As this remains a matter under investigation by the police, I will not comment on the specifics of the case."
The GIMF has harnessed the Internet to replace the old-style communiques that terrorist groups used to distribute to sow fear by threatening their targets, making demands and taking responsibility for acts of violence.
Islamist terrorist groups from Iraq and Afghanistan to the Palestinian territories and Somalia send their messages and videos to the GIMF, which translates, packages and redistributes them to hundreds of on-line message boards.
It is one of the largest al-Qaida mouthpieces, and the kind of slick work it does, putting jihadist propaganda all over the Internet, is credited by security agencies for helping spread the ideology that is turning some Western youths into extremists.
"Its an organization that has moved from being a propaganda organization to a terrorist organization, literally," Katz, director of the SITE Institute, said. "What they have is the infrastructure of disseminating the information around hundreds of message boards."
The GIMF arrests are just the latest linked to on-line terrorism. While the Internet has allowed Osama bin Laden to spread his dark vision, it has also given investigators a window that lets them track extremists electronically.
Last summer's arrest of 18 suspects around Toronto also grew out of an on-line investigation into youths who were posting extremist tracts on message boards, and allegedly graduated to planning bomb attacks in Ontario.
The RCMP did not say how long they had been investigating Namouh, but Senator Colin Kenny, who chairs the national security committee, told CTV, "They've been working in a co-operative way with the Austrians for some time on this.
"The arrests tell you that they're clearly taking action," he told the network. "If the arrest hadn't taken place and this guy left the country, there would be a problem somewhere."
|
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=c6c4b321-d1bf-45f6-9328-e6909707a9ca |
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
