Canada Terrorism Watch: Operation Badr – The Crown Synopsis

The Globe and Mail: How the police watched the plan unfold

Fahim Ahmad group’s alleged ’emir’

It’s alleged that they called their project Operation Badr. And before its unravelling gripped the world’s attention on the weekend, it made quieter noises that police say they picked up on: a seemingly inconsequential gun seizure at the Canada-U.S. border; a gunshot near Cochrane in Northern Ontario; bullets shattering statues of Hindu gods during a target practice in a remote area in the Township of Ramara, Ont.; and the printing of business cards with a decidedly non-threatening e-mail address, Studentfarmers@hotmail.com.

According to a copy of a Crown synopsis viewed yesterday by The Globe and Mail, police have months worth of surveillance, communication intercepts and physical evidence that were amassed before a monitored buy of $4,000 worth of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on Friday. This sting is said to be the final chapter of months of dogged police work, leading to the arrest of 17 suspects.

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This is an interesting expose into the working of this terrorist group.

Note:

But according to the Crown dossier seen by The Globe, police were doing a lot: They were watching Mr. Ahmad’s communications, and came to believe he was talking to overseas figures with ties to international terrorism; they were trying to tie him to two Georgia-based terrorism suspects who had visited Toronto that spring; and they were keeping a close eye on the Toronto-area circles he moved in.

Seems to be the rationale behind the NSA monitoring communications, eh?

Another interesting piece in the Globe and Mail today is RCMP foiled dozen plots in past two years.

The RCMP has quietly broken up at least a dozen terrorist groups in the past two years, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

“We have completed 12 disruptions of national-level terrorist groups across the country,” the Mounties say in briefing notes prepared for Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.

Disruptive tactics — sometimes as simple as letting targets know they are under close surveillance — are used to prevent a terrorist attack when the police do not have enough evidence to lay criminal charges, the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service say.

Unlike the high-profile arrests and court proceedings resulting from the weekend roundup of terrorist suspects in Southern Ontario, the public rarely learns about these operations, federal security officials say.

The briefing notes, released to The Globe under the Access to Information Act, are part of the transition book prepared by the RCMP for Mr. Day when the Conservatives formed a new government in February.

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Stay tuned……..