The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has told its political masters and other western intelligence agencies that it has strong evidence Ottawa software engineer Mohammed Momin Khawaja had a direct role in plotting terrorist attacks in London, and has links to anti-western Islamic extremists in Pakistan, sources said yesterday.
| Political Masters? Methinks I detect a hint of bias there. |
Officials say the RCMP's arrests this week of Mr. Khawaja in Ottawa and the arrests of nine British Muslims in London -- all of whom are of Pakistani descent -- are just the start of a series of anti-terrorism operations to take place around the globe. On Tuesday, authorities arrested three al-Qaeda suspects in Jordan for allegedly planning terrorist attacks. Yesterday, security forces in Turkey, Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands carried out co-ordinated raids against an ultra-leftist Turkish group considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., arresting 53 suspects. Officials say western security agencies and their allies in the developing world plan more arrests, largely directed at closing down radical Islamic terrorist cells linked to, or inspired by Osama bin Laden. Intelligence sources would not say whether CSIS or the RCMP have evidence linking Mr. Khawaja directly to al-Qaeda, but he is believed to be sympathetic to the anti-western ideology of Mr. bin Laden and his senior lieutenants, who are thought to be hiding in northwestern Pakistan.
| Sigh, they still don't seem to grasp the idea that islamo-fascist ideology is the enemy, not membership in one group or another. |
Mr. Khawaja is being dubbed "The Fixer" by several newspapers in Britain that claim he was acting as a mentor for a cell of young British terrorist suspects before he was arrested. Before the arrests, the British spy agency MI5 had conducted a two-month surveillance operation during which the suspected cell is alleged to have discussed bombing several targets in and around London. Lip readers were used to study films of the cell taken by undercover officers and tracking devices were attached to cars. Three of the suspects were arrested in Crawley, a town close to Gatwick airport, and were known to frequent an Internet cafe called PC UK. After the suspects had been picked up, police conducted a major forensic search of the cafe and seized several computer hard drives.
| Gathering lots of lovely documentation. |
Jafar Nazir, 34, co-owner of the business, said that the three had been in three or four times, had browsed the Internet for 20 or 30 minutes and then left. He said the youngsters were "normal kids" and that he had no idea what they got up to. While the cafe and its owners have no connection with terrorist activity, British newspapers are speculating that the suspects have been using the e-mail to talk with al-Qaeda "mentors" or "fixers" in other countries. Police are looking for communications between members of the cell and "fixers" whose job is to offer help.
| Call it "fixer" or "mentor" if you like, I call it a controller. Sounds like Khawaja met them in person while on his "wife shopping" trip to England and briefed them on how to stay in touch via the internet. There had to be a local recruiter who selected the group and passed them off to Khawaja. |
Insiders say Prime Minister Paul Martin and Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan were briefed on the extensive file on Mr. Khawaja, 24, a contract employee at Foreign Affairs. Sources say evidence accumulated by CSIS and other western intelligence agencies led officials to lay charges against Mr. Khawaja for unspecified terrorist activities in Ottawa and London between Nov. 10, 2003, and Monday of this week. The government also alleges that in the same period and in those same cities, Mr. Khawaja "did knowingly facilitate a terrorist activity." He is charged under terrorism-related sections of the Criminal Code.
| Controller or money man? He appears in court by video link today, may be more info after that. |
Stephen Greenberg, the Ottawa lawyer hired by the Khawaja family, said yesterday he has not been provided with any evidence against his client but expects to get more information when Mr. Khawaja appears in court today. "I have been given nothing really, but the Crown says I am supposed to get a disclosure package," Mr. Greenberg said. "I want to have something because my client is entitled to know why he is being charged." In a meeting yesterday morning at the Innes Road jail, Mr. Khawaja asked Mr. Greenberg to make a public statement on his behalf. "He says he's innocent," Mr. Greenberg said after the meeting. "He says he's not a member of any terrorist organization, and that he has not taken part in any terrorist activity."
| There are never any guilty people in prison, either |
Mr. Greenberg's visit is the first jail officials have allowed Mr. Khawaja since he was arrested and charged earlier this week with two counts under the criminal code's anti-terrorism sections. In court documents, the RCMP allege Mr. Khawaja is a member of a terrorist organization and took part in terrorist activities in the last four months. They do not say which organization or what activities. However, a friend of the Khawaja family said the RCMP indicated that they believed the accused was involved in bomb-making.
| Hummm, instructing the boys in England over the internet? If they've been under survillance the cops have transcripts of their e-mail. |
Officials would not say if Mr. Khawaja had any role in planning possible terrorist attacks in Canada, but the RCMP conducted an extensive search of the Ottawa home that he shared with his mother and siblings. Police searched for bombs and bomb-making material. On Monday, British police arrested eight men and seized half a tonne of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer compound used to make bombs. A ninth British Muslim of Pakistani descent was arrested yesterday under suspicion of belonging to the alleged bomb plot. Mr. Khawaja had recently travelled to London and Pakistan to visit relatives.
| Cue "Family Affair" music. |
Mr. Khawaja's father, Mahboob A. Khawaja, an administrator in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, was arrested by Saudi officials Wednesday, according to his family. The Saudi Embassy in Ottawa had no comment on the arrest of the 62-year-old academic and writer. Mahboob Khawaja has written critically about American foreign policy, "corrupt Arab leadership," "American-Zionist political encroachment in the Middle East," and the West's response to terrorism and the war on terror.
| Now he has a chance to do research on how corrupt Arab leadership responds to critics. He ought to get a bestseller out of it. |
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