GTA Terror Sweet

June 3 - There was a curious story yesterday about some men who were behaving quite peculiarly in the subway. The description of their activities was enough to raise terror concerns:

These two men, spotted May 23 at the Keele subway station, have brought this to the forefront. It could be nothing. It might be something! Who knows? "Two guys with video cameras were hanging around the platform and were on the trains filming the inside and under the seats," a TTC source said. "It was strange." (Emphasis added)

Strange indeed, yet one would think a real terror planner would be considerably more circumspect .. and I figured there was little to the story.

But.

Newsbeat1 linked to a partial transcript of an Al Jazeera interview last May with Taliban military commander Mullah Dadallah (breathless CTV version here) and a veiled threat to Canada was followed by the suggestion that, should Canada withdraw from Afghanistan, there would be no reason to attack:

Mullah Dadallah: "America now wants to avoid the heat of battle, so it pushes other countries towards it. Our operations may increase even more. Our advice to Canada and Britain is to refrain from defending the American propaganda, and from standing by this historic American crime. America wants to get other countries entangled in the crimes it committed in Afghanistan. Our advice to these countries is to avoid the heat of battle, because we will wreak vengeance upon them one by one, like we are doing with the Americans, if they remain here when the Americans are gone."

[...]

"Our main enemy is the United States. As for Canada and the other countries - we have no historical enmity with them. But if they want to come here as fighting forces, we will view them just as we view the Americans, and will conduct resistance against them. But if they return to where they came from, and withdraw their forces from here, we will not view them like the Americans, but as countries which we have nothing to do with."

When I left work this morning, there it was on the front page of the Toronto Sun: GTA Terror Sweep:

In a stunning development yesterday, police made a sweeping terrorist bust within the GTA and expected to make several more arrests throughout the night.

"The RCMP, CSIS and the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team arrested individuals throughout the GTA today in relation to terrorist-related offences," confirmed RCMP spokesman Corp. Michele Paradis.

As of about 9 p.m. last night, Paradis also added "there are ongoing arrests."

Though unconfirmed, sources have told the Sun police arrested a possible home-grown al-Qaeda terrorist cell operating in Toronto that had planned to bomb the subway as early as Monday.

Home grown terrorists tranining in home grown training camps:

Police had been watching several alleged terrorist camps since 2004 -- one of which is reported to be in the Muskokas near Bracebridge and another near Thunder Bay, a police source told Warmington late last night.

"Recently some officers followed two men who left the camp near Thunder Bay and headed to Toronto," said the source.

Another Sun source said there was a similar "terrorist" camp near Barry's Bay -- within an hour's drive of several Ontario nuclear operations.

There are reports that the suspects were "amassing weapons" -- including explosives.

Now we return to something curious:

But sources also tell the Sun that the RCMP "planted" that story [see first paragraph of this post] with the media, though reasons remain unclear.

It is regrettable that this cat was let out of the bag, and if this item is true, the "source" should be disciplined.

Iraq fired a Scud missile into Kuwait shortly after the invasion into Iraq began. A CNN correspondence told the world precisely where the missile landed -- not thinking that the information would be of value to the Iraqis and help them correct their aim.

I don't want to seem overly harsh on this, but one of the hardest parts about being a terror and war blogger is that sometimes the dots line up and you gasp "Wow!" and rush off to the keyboard ... only to realize that, if you truly care about helping the war effort, you can not publish your Eureka moment.

We aren't supposed to give out operational information! (Yes, I know, the U.S. news media violates that dictum as a matter of routine. Shoot them. Please.)

There will be a press conference this morning at 10 a.m. EDT. and it should be fascinating. I'm certain Newsbeat1 will quickly provide links as to what information is given out if you can't watch it yourself.

Today is moving day and I'll be losing internet access at some point. More later (Toronto hydro, the cable company and Bell Canada willing.)

Posted by: Debbye at 06:48 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 790 words, total size 5 kb.