Canadian Terror Suspects May Have Been Targeting Government Buildings

Via Declassified Blog (NewsWeek) -

Three suspects arrested by Canadian authorities this week on terrorism-related charges had been collecting materials and instructions for building homemade bombs and may have considered targeting Canadian government buildings, national-security officials say. Three additional suspects in the case are wanted but have not yet been arrested. For the moment, U.S. officials say, there appears to be no American link to what Canadian officials are calling a major terror inquiry.

In press statements in Ottawa today, representatives of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country's undercover spy agency, announced that the three men apprehended so far in this week's roundup had accumulated a stash of homemade bomb materials, including "schematics, videos, drawings, instructions, books, and electrical components designed specifically for the construction of Improvised Explosive Devices." The Mounties also said they believe that the three men arrested so far in the case are part of an unnamed domestic terror group operating in Canada, and that one of the men is a member of and was in contact with a terror group linked to the war in Afghanistan. The Mounties said they have evidence that one of the three men had been trained in bomb-building.

The Mounties identified the three men already in custody as Hiva Mohammed Alizadeh, Misbahuddin Ahmed, and Khurram Syed Sher. A spokesman for the Mounties told Declassified they are all Canadian citizens, but would not further describe the men's backgrounds. Nor did Canadian authorities identify the Afghan-based terror group to whom they said one of the men was linked, though some Canadian news reports suggested there might be a connection to Al Qaeda.

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Turgeon said he could not confirm reports linking the plot to Al Qaeda, nor could he discuss what investigators believe the ultimate objective of the plot might have been. However, a national-security official familiar with reporting on the case, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said there were indications the men may have been plotting to attack Canadian government buildings, presumably in Ottawa, the national capital. The official also said there was reason to believe that at least one of the suspects had traveled to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region for explosives training.