TORONTO - The young men charged with plotting terrorist attacks against Canadian targets were allegedly planning two separate strikes one to detonate a truck bomb to destroy a significant building and the other to open fire on a crowd in a public place, the National Post has learned. The alleged conspirators were concentrating their efforts on their assigned missions and were in an advanced state of planning when authorities arrested them last weekend.
The national security component of the huge investigation was code-named Operation Claymore by Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada's spy agency, which was on specific alert as their office at the base of the CN Tower was among the list of prime targets by the alleged conspirators. The Toronto Stock Exchange was another of the plotters' prime targets for a massive bomb attack, according to law-enforcement sources. Both attacks would have devastated Toronto and, if carried out during business hours, would have resulted in significant casualties.
Sources also told the National Post that the commandos of Joint Task Force-2 (JTF-2), Canada's elite special forces unit, were put on standby a short flight away from where suspected terrorists were conducting ''training camps'' at an isolated site north of Toronto. A ''troop'' of about 25 of the unit's highly trained assaulters, part of JTF-2's counter-terrorism unit, were at a nearby military base with their helicopters ready to swoop down should police decide they were needed, said a military source. ''They were within a few minutes flying time of this training camp,'' said the source, who is familiar with JTF-2's operations. ''Basically they were on standby in case things got out of hand and the police couldn't handle it.'' |