Toronto:
An Al Qaeda-linked plot in Canada, in which the suspects were
preparing to carry out the first terror attack in the country, has
been traced back to Pakistan, Iran and Dubai even as police arrested
another plotter Thursday.
The suspects were just "months" away from carrying out the first
terrorist attack on Canadian soil, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
(RCMP) said.
While two suspects, 30-year-old Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh and
26-year-old Misbahuddin Ahmed - reported by his landlord to be of
Indian origin - were arrested Wednesday in Ottawa, 28-year-old
Khuram Khan was nabbed Thursday morning form the city of London,
south-west of Toronto.
Khan, who comes from Pakistan, had taken part in the 2008 Canadian
Idol contest wearing the Pakistani national dress of salwar-kameez.
The three suspects have been charged with hatching a terror plot in
collaboration with their Canadian co-conspirators - Zakaria Mamosta,
Rizgar Alizadeh and James Lara - and people in Pakistan, Iran,
Afghanistan and Dubai. They have also been charged with financing
terror groups in Afghanistan.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have seized more than 50
electronic circuit boards that can be used in making improvised
explosive devices (IEDs).
The plot has been in the works since February 2008, and was
unearthed after a year-long surveillance of the suspects, police
said.
"This group posed a real and serious threat to the citizens of the
national capital region (Ottawa) and Canada's national security. Our
criminal investigation and arrests prevented the assembly of any
bombs and the terrorist attack," said RCMP Superintendent Serge
Therriault.
Reacting to the smashing of the jihadist plot, Prime Minister
Stephen Harper said "Canada does face some very real threats in the
troubled in which we live."
He said terror networks targeting Western nations have a global
reach.
"They exist not only in remote countries but through globalisation
and the Internet, they have links in our country and all through the
world," the prime minister said.
It is the second Al Qaeda-linked terror plot to be smashed in Canada
after the Toronto-18 plot, which was unearthed in June 2006 with the
arrest of 18 Toronto-area Muslim youths for conspiring to blow up
major targets and storm parliament to take leaders hostage and
behead the prime minister.
Eleven of these 18 plotters were convicted.
Canada has more than one million Muslims in its population of 34
million, and their population is projected to triple in the next two
decades.
(Gurmukh Singh
can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)
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