The sting

A Canadian Press report describes how CSIS investigators uncovered evidence which led to the Toronto arrests, by monitoring "anti-Western" activity on the web:

Canadian teens who were spending their time on websites promoting anti-Western sentiment were being watched from cyberspace by Canadian investigators who bided their time as they waited for words to turn into action.

Those investigators soon unravelled a sinister plan to detonate three tonnes of explosive material on unsuspecting civilians in and around Canada's most populous city - an investigation that culminated Friday in 17 high-profile arrests.

It was in 2004 that tech-savvy spies noticed some teens spending more and more time reading and posting to extremist websites, sources revealed to the media. The sleuthing sparked a probe by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service which eventually uncovered an attack plan by a group of extremists.

The country's top investigators came together through an Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, or INSET, comprised of RCMP, CSIS, federal agencies and provincial and municipal police.

The cloak-dagger group is made up of more than 400 highly skilled sleuths who spent thousands of hours diligently conducting the investigation, officials said in announcing the raids.

The arrests came after three tonnes of ammonium nitrate - a common garden fertilizer that's easily transformed into a power-packed explosive charge - was allegedly purchased from undercover officers, the Star reported.

The oldest person arrested, 43-year-old Qayyum Abdul Jamal, was a well-known Islamic extremist who took over a more moderate mosque, according to sources cited in the CP story. The Associated Press, meanwhile, reports that the suspects attempted to purchase ammonium nitrate - a fertilizer which can be used in explosives - from undercover RCMP agents:

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police itself delivered three tons of potential bomb-making material to a group that authorities said wanted to launch a string of attacks inspired by al-Qaida, according to a news report Sunday.

The Toronto Star said the sting unfolded when investigators delivered the ammonium nitrate to the group of Muslim Canadians, then moved in quickly on what officials called a homegrown terror ring.

The newspaper said that investigators learned of the group's alleged plan to bomb targets around Ontario, then controlled the sale and transport of the fertilizer.

Authorities refused to discuss the Star's story and have revealed few details of the purported plot, or how the sting developed.

Andrew Coyne links to a Toronto Star report on the sting, which says the RCMP replaced the ammonium nitrate with harmless powder just before making the deal and subsequent arrests. That doesn't change the suspects' alleged intent, of course, but it suggests that the situation may not have been quite as urgent as the police suggested:

If you intend to make and explode a bomb, and you attempt to obtain the materials necessary to that end, then you're just as guilty whether or not you ever succeed in making the bomb and regardless of whether the materials turn out to be ammonium nitrate or baking soda.

And no, it's not "entrapment" just because the police sell it to you, or pretend to. It's your intent that counts: to show entrapment, you have to show, in effect, that the police planted the thought in your brain -- that the idea of buying tons of ammonium nitrate and blowing up a building with it would never have occurred to you had the cops not cajoled you into it.

But that stuff about the police having to move fast to prevent an imminent attack seems a bit over the top.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at June 5, 2006 09:03 AM