Counterterrorism agents are probing links between the foiled plot in Toronto and Islamic extremists in other countries, Robert Mueller, the Federal Bureau of Investigation director, said yesterday.
“We are investigating possible ties between the Toronto suspects and terrorist cells around the world,” Mr. Mueller said in a speech in Cleveland, Ohio, that gave the most explicit confirmation to date of international co-operation surrounding the Toronto cell.
The thwarting of an alleged terrorist plot to detonate truck bombs in downtown Toronto came after “high-level co-ordination, co-ordination between international law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Canada, here in the United States, Denmark, Britain, Bosnia, Bangladesh, and in other countries,” Mr. Mueller said.
About 40 young men, 17 of them in Canada, have been arrested in the past year in the countries named by Mr. Mueller. All are alleged to be jihadists, mostly in their teens and 20s. Prior to the arrests, several of the main suspects are known to have established contact with one another through face-to-face meetings or via the Internet.
Now, after the roundups, it's the global spy agencies who are increasingly talking to each other, and even interrogating each others' suspects, to refine their understandings of the global jihadist movement. For example, a Bosnian official told The Globe and Mail this week that Canadian spies, who were probing their home-grown targets at an early juncture, travelled to Sarajevo to question a suspect recently jailed there.
Many countries are now grappling with growing religious extremism arising within their borders. “These home-grown terrorists may prove to be as dangerous as groups like al-Qaeda, if not more so,” said Mr. Mueller, who spoke just hours after seven more suspected terrorists were arrested in an FBI operation in Miami.
The speech he gave yesterday provides the first unequivocal confirmation by a senior counterterrorism official, either in Canada or the United States, that foiling the alleged Toronto cell was a major, multinational effort that links to the arrests in other jurisdictions.
The 17 Toronto arrests, which include a core group of six alleged bomb plotters and a variety of alleged associates on their fringes, will be an important test of Canada's national-security laws.
While Ottawa has never convicted a single suspect under the 2001 Antiterrorism Act, U.S. Justice Department officials pointed out yesterday that they had secured more than 260 terrorism-related convictions since September, 2001, with another 180 cases pending.
Many of the U.S. cases, however, involve fairly minor infractions, such as visa fraud or making false statements in connection with terrorism. Mr. Mueller indicated he considered the alleged Canadian plot highly significant, and even put it on par with lethal attacks in England and Spain.
“We have already seen this new face of terrorism on a global scale in Madrid, in London and in Toronto,” Mr. Mueller said. “And we have also witnessed this so-called self-radicalization here at home.”
Canadian counterterrorism officials are tight-lipped about the links to other suspects that are turning up. “I cannot make any comment on ongoing investigations,” Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told The Globe and Mail.
“However, I can say that both the RCMP and CSIS co-operate closely with U.S. law-enforcement agencies on investigations of mutual interest. We are in contact with the U.S. with respect to [the Toronto] arrests.”
In fact, a cross-border investigation has been in place for more than a year. The first known overlap occurred in March, 2005, when two Georgia-based terrorism suspects took a Greyhound bus to Toronto to meet “like-minded local extremists,” according to a court-filed FBI affidavit. At the time, both the FBI and CSIS were already watching their targets.
Then, last fall, a rapid-fire series of arrests occurred in Bosnia, Britain and Denmark. The most significant figure captured in these raids is believed to be a Londoner whose alleged nom de guerre is Irhabi 007, which translates as “Terrorist 007.”
He is understood to have been a key al-Qaeda propagandist who used the Internet to incite angry young Muslims worldwide toward localized jihad.
Just how the North American and European groups connect remains murky, but there are indications of overlap. For example, the reputed Canadian ringleader is alleged to have had contact with terrorist figures in Britain and Pakistan. Also, a young man arrested in Atlanta is accused of making “casing videos” of Washington targets, which fits the descriptions of suspicious videos that are alleged to have shown up on Irhabi 007's seized computer. Also, certain Canadian and British suspects reportedly communicated with one another on a password-protected Internet forum.
A Bosnian official also confirmed this week that Canadian spies have been to Sarajevo to question Mirsad Bektasevic, an 18-year-old Bosnian Muslim who used the Internet identity of “Maximus.” In fact, he has been interrogated by half a dozen international spy agencies since he was arrested last October after allegedly buying at least 20 kilograms of powerful explosives.
The suspect's lawyer, Idriz Kamenica, has complained that he has been visited for lengthy interviews by officials from Canada, the United States, Britain, Sweden and Denmark.
Some accounts of international links present the terrorist threat flowing down from top al-Qaeda figures, but one North American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, was wary of any “terrorist mastermind” theories.
Simply put, these theories overlook the way the threat is metastasizing. The global jihadist movement has sown seeds of discontent that are inducing local groups of radicals to meet and reinforce each other, and become self-starters when it comes to forming plots.
And for global counterterrorism agencies, the alleged Toronto plot represents just another indication of an escalating threat.
“Although the Canadian authorities uncovered this plot before these men harmed anyone, we face that sobering fact that yet another group of extremists planned a terrorist attack and took steps to execute that attack,” Mr. Mueller said. “... The Toronto suspects lived in the area they intended to attack. They were not sleeper operatives sent on suicide missions; they were students and business people and members of the community. They were persons who, for whatever reason, came to view their home country as the enemy.”
