Canadian Terrorists Arrested With Three Times the Ammonium Nitrate Used at OK City

Chilling news from north of the border, where Canadian officials arrested 17 suspected terrorist suspects who were planning some major fire works, per Fox:

Canadian police foiled a homegrown terrorist attack by arresting 17 suspects, apparently inspired by Al Qaeda, who obtained three times the amount of explosive ingredients used in the Oklahoma City bombing, officials said Saturday. ...................

Did you catch that? These guys had "THREE TIMES" the amount of ammonium nitrate that was used to blow-up the Murrah Federal building in OK City in 1995............................Can you imagine the damage caused by such an explosion?

One of the suspects brother is quoted as stating: "He's not a terrorist, come on. He's a Canadian citizen," Chand said. "The people that were arrested are good people, they go to the mosque, they go to school, go to college."..............................I don't think Chand should pursue a career in legal defense, because his statement of defense does not give one the vision of falsely accused people, given the history we have seen of those committing the current terrorist crimes............Going to the Mosque and attending school/college, seems to be the things terrorist have most in common regardless of who they are........................

Pajamas Media has a comprehensive post up covering the story including lots of blog responses. The insanity of the NSA objections is taken on by Conferate Yankee:

What authorities are not saying—and will almost certainly not confirm—is the distinct possibility that this plot was uncovered via the NSA foreign intelligence surveillance program that the NY Times tried to label a “domestic spying” program. As most international communications into North America filter through U.S. switching equipment, it seems logical that if international communications were involved, the NSA would be the lead agency handing off information their counterparts in Canadian border police and intelligence agencies.

CNN also suggests—but doesn’t support—is that this raid could be tied to the London terror raid conducted Friday that foiled a suspected chemical weapons plot........................

How insane is the view by the left that NSA is not needed or legal? This is yet another example of the real and true threats we face in the GWOT...............not only is NAS legal and within the Presidents constitutional power, this is yet another example of why it is so critical..........It's what, about a 500 miles drive from Toronto to New York?...........................

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Captain Quarters has a post up with relative points on how NSA like intel gathering helped stop this tragedy along with links to others making the same points (here):

The issue of Internet monitoring has some in the US uncomfortable about breaches of privacy. However, the terrorists use that as a decentralized communication method, and a willful refusal to investigate these communications is sheer folly, as this raid attests. Should the Canadians have eschewed their investigation -- and waited until this group killed hundreds or thousands of people before knowing anything about them? The Internet is not a private network, as some could argue the phone systems provide. Communications are not point-to-point but broadcast, and the expectation of privacy in Internet communications should have disappeared long ago.

If we want to catch these people before they strike, then we had better know when, where, and how they communicate for coordination and recruitment, and be prepared to stop them as the CSIS has apparently done today. (via Stop The ACLU

UPDATE: ThreatsWatch notes this development as well, and reminds Americans that the CSIS is not unlike the NSA.......................

Not investigating these communications would be sheer folly, and would be the actions of foolish people and those trying to become victims....................

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The Toronto Star is reporting that internet intel and spying provided the leads for the police to break the case:

The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad...............Their words were sometimes encrypted, the Internet sites where they communicated allegedly restricted by passwords, but Canadian spies back in 2004 were reading them. And as the youths' words turned into actions, they began watching them........

So NSA like spying was the tool needed to prevent this terrorist attack..............And if you were thinking these guys might not be full blown jihadists, think again:

They traveled north to a "training camp" and made propaganda videos imitating jihadists who had battled in Afghanistan. At night, they washed up at a Tim Hortons nearby............................

When you have travels to training camps and jihadist videos, you have full blown jihadists........................This was a very serious risk and we are very fortunate that the authorities were using all the intel tools at their disposal to catch them. I'll repeat the painfully obvious, how could any rational person not support the NSA?

The Star is also reporting that one of the targets that hit close to home with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service:

The group arrested yesterday allegedly had a list of targets, sources have told the Star, and the Toronto headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was one of them. So were the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa and a smattering of other high-profile, heavily populated areas................

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A piece of the jihadists puzzle I'd forgotten makes the Canadian ground zero location of this attempted terrorist attack make chilling sense, per Partisan Times.com:

Shortly after 9/11, Osama bin Laden named five "Christian nations" that should be targeted for terrorist attacks: the United States, Britain, Spain, Australia, and Canada. Four of those five countries have been hit; Canada was to be next......................

Technically, Australia was attacked outside its borders, but targeted none-the-less..........................

They mean to follow-through, so the GWOT must have the focus to stop them.........