Terrorism case extends beyond Canada’s border
Suspects not violent, Toronto imam says.

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario (AP) - Canadian authorities investigating an alleged homegrown plot to blow up buildings in Ontario said today more arrests were possible as part of a wider investigation into terrorist cells in at least seven countries, including the United States.

The Toronto Star, citing a U.S. counterterrorism official it did not name, said investigators were combing through evidence seized during Saturday’s raids looking for connections between the 17 arrested suspects and at least 18 other Islamic militants detained in the United States, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Britain, Denmark and Sweden.

"This investigation is not finished," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. today. "Anybody that aided, facilitated or participated in this terrorist event will be arrested and prosecuted in court."

In an interview with National Public Radio, McDonell said the investigation had expanded beyond Canada. "We are working with and sharing our information with our allied countries," he said.

The arrests were made Friday and Saturday after the group acquired 3 tons of ammonium nitrate from undercover Mounties in a sting operation, the Toronto Star has reported. The fertilizer can be mixed with fuel oil or other ingredients to make a bomb.

That is three times the amount of fertilizer used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, McDonell said. The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killed 168 people and injured more than 800.

"For various reasons, they appeared to have become adherents of a violent ideology inspired by al-Qaida," Luc Portelance, the assistant director of operations with CSIS - Canada’s spy agency, said Saturday.

Officials said the operation involved some 400 intelligence and law-enforcement officers and was the largest counterterrorism operation in Canada since the nation’s Anti-Terrorism Act was adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Star reported that the investigation began in 2004 with the monitoring of Internet chat rooms.

A prayer leader at a storefront mosque west of Toronto said several suspects prayed daily there but never spoke of hurting others.

"I will say that they were steadfast, religious people. There’s no doubt about it. But here we always preach peace and moderation," Qamrul Khanson, an imam at the one-room Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education, said yesterday.

The 40 to 50 Muslim families who worship at the mosque were astonished, he said, to learn police had arrested 12 adults, ages 19 to 43, and five suspects younger than 18 on Friday and Saturday, charging them with plotting an attack in southern Ontario. Two Americans who met with the suspects also are in custody.

The 17 suspects represent a spectrum of Canadian society, from the unemployed to a school bus driver to the college-educated. The 12 adults live in Toronto, Mississauga and Kingston, Ontario.

Police said the suspects, all citizens or residents of Canada, had trained together. The oldest suspect, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, often led prayers at the storefront mosque.

Khanson said Jamal’s Friday night prayers were "more aggressive" than those of other prayer leaders, but there was no talk of hostility or terrorism.

The modest mosque is sandwiched between The Cafe Khan, which offers Pakistani kabobs, and a convenience store in Mississauga, a city of 700,000 people with many immigrants. Mohammed Jan works at the cafe and said several suspects often came in for snacks after prayers. "It’s pretty shocking. They used to come every day, and they just seemed normal," Jan said. "I definitely didn’t find their behavior suspicious."

A neighbor, Peter Smith, said a half-dozen SWAT team officers converged on the home Friday evening and began screaming at the family to get outside and get down on the ground. Even the young children were handcuffed, Smith said.

"Other kids were yelling, ‘Terrorists! Terrorists!’ and they were asking their mom, ‘Mom, are we terrorists?’" he said.

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