Monday, April 22, 2013

Two charged over al-Qaeda-supported terror plot to attack VIA passenger train: RCMP

Stewart Bell | 13/04/22 | Last Updated: 13/04/22 4:23 PM ET

A VIA Rail employee walks past the Ocean, the Halifax-to-Montreal passenger train, at the station in Halifax on Wednesday, June 27, 2012. The company is expected to release the next phase of its modernization plan which may include cuts to rail passenger service. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

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TORONTO — Two suspects are in custody, one from Ontario and one from Quebec, following an RCMP counter-terrorism investigation in Ontario. RCMP say the men were plotting to attack a Via Rail passenger train in the Greater Toronto Area.

The 2:30 p.m. background briefing, attended by several prominent Muslim community leaders, followed by a news conference near Toronto’s Pearson airport. In recent years, police have made a point of briefing community leaders before announcing terror arrests.

A silver propeller plane carrying an alleged suspect touched down at Buttonville Municipal Airport at 3:20 p.m. on Monday. Two uniformed RCMP officers emerged, followed by two other men carrying laptop bags. The accused appeared accompanied by another officer. He was in handcuffs and shackles, blue jeans and sneakers, and wearing a windbreaker. He did not respond to reporters’ shouted questions.

One of the men carrying laptops also declined to talk, walking past without saying a word.

Peter J. Thompson / National Post RCMP Officers escort a man in shackles from a plane at Buttonville Airport in Ontario, Monday April 22, 2013

The suspect was bundled into a black Chevy Suburban with tinted windows and whisked from the tarmac.

The arrests come at a time of heightened public concern over terrorism following the bombings in Boston as well as recent revelations over the involvement of radicalized Canadian youths in overseas terrorist groups.

Last week, the RCMP said it was looking into whether a Canadian, Mahad Dhore, had died while taking part in a suicide attack on the courts in the Somali capital Mogadshu. The York University student left Toronto in 2009 and allegedly joined the armed Islamist group Al Shabab.

The RCMP has also been investigating two young classmates from London, Ont., who died in Algeria in January while apparently taking part in a terrorist attack at a gas plant. A third member of the circle is imprisoned in Mauritania on charges he had been recruited to fight with Al Qaeda in Mali.

Testifying last month before a Parliamentary committee, a Canadian Security Intelligence Service official said the terrorist threat had become more diffuse, with regional affiliates playing a greater role as the core of Al Qaeda had been diminished.

Michael Peirce, the CSIS Assistant Director of Intelligence, said groups like Al Shabab in Somalia, the North African-based Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen were the new “sites of power and sites of activity” for al-Qaeda.

“This means there’s a regional distribution of the threat, and that diffusion, creating a regional distribution, leads to a greater risk of individuals travelling. Now there are a greater number of areas to travel [to], a greater number of affiliated Al Qaeda organizations to join, and that has increased the risk,” he said.

With files from Joe O’Connor and the Canadian Press

Labels: Canada, Islamists, Terrorism, Threats