<http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/ajc.cni/metro;pg=metro;sub=clickability;sz=1 20x240;ord=[timestamp]?> Trip to Canada fateful for Georgians Authorities say 2 men traveled to Toronto to meet with terror plotters
By BILL TORPY <http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 06/11/06 TORONTO - Just more than a year ago, Ehsanul Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed boarded a Greyhound bus bound for a world they couldn't find in their hometown of Atlanta. Their destination was Toronto, a vibrant city of immigrants and home to more than 300,000 Muslims. Locals boast that 100 languages are spoken here. And, among those voices, some are radical. It was here, 950 miles to the north, that Sadequee and Ahmed found "like-minded extremists," planned to get terrorist training and plotted to identify American sites for terrorist attacks, U.S. authorities allege. They met with at least two of the 17 suspects arrested last week in an anti-terrorism sweep that has gripped this country, according to sealed charging papers filed by Canadian authorities and viewed by CBS News. Canadian authorities accuse the group of young Muslims of obtaining 3 tons of ammonium nitrate to make bombs and plotting a raid on the Canadian Parliament during which one of the suspects hoped to behead the prime minister. Fahim Ahmad, 21, is one of the Canadians who met with the Georgia men, according to the documents viewed by CBS. Authorities believe Ahmad is one of the ringleaders who helped organize a paramilitary training trip in Canada. He also is suspected of arranging trips to Pakistan for training and buying guns in the United States. The other, Jahmaal James, 23, went to Pakistan this year to obtain military training, prosecutors allege. While little is known about what the Georgia men did in Toronto, investigators say the two first encountered the Canadians through radical Islamic chat rooms and met them over a couple of days. If the two met with Ahmad and James, the Georgia men would have encountered men with what authorities consider to be clear links to the terrorist group. Ahmad and James attended a Toronto mosque that counted among its members at least two men who fought for al-Qaida overseas, according to Canadian authorities. Ahmad used al-Qaida statements to motivate followers and urged them to select "big targets" in the United States and Canada, according to the documents filed by Canadian authorities. Authorities have released few details about the Georgia men's link to Canada. But it appears that Toronto, a city Sadequee knew as an adolescent, was a nurturing ground for the young men's aspirations. Many of the 17 suspects arrested here in the terrorism sweep resemble Sadequee and Ahmed. They are young (five are juveniles and only two are older than 23), mostly born or raised in their parents' adopted land and are from middle-class backgrounds. Sadequee, 19, was born in the United States and moved to the Atlanta area in 1988. His parents are from Bangladesh, and he has an aunt in Toronto. From 1999 to 2001 he attended the Institute of Islamic Learning, a strict Islamic seminary in nearby Ajax, Ontario, that teaches an austere brand of fundamentalism. The institute's principal, Abdul Majid Khan, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Sadequee enrolled in a program to memorize the entire Quran. But Khan said he remembers the teenager dropping out before completing the course. Sadequee, who was about 13 at the time, was unremarkable, he said. He said authorities interviewed him about Sadequee last month. The brick school is in a wooded field about 30 miles east of Toronto and has 112 students, 38 of whom live there. A visit to the school last week found several dozen students, from bearded young men in their early 20s to boys about 9 years old, in traditional dress. Some played basketball outside. Angry about U.S. policy Khan said the school is accredited and offers a variety of courses. He said the Canadian education officials who monitor the school often remark on the well-behaved students. "Nowadays, the teens are out of control, no respect," Khan said. Ahmed, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, traveled to Pakistan last summer. His family says it was to attend a religious school, but investigators say it was to get military training. Ahmed, a 21-year-old Georgia Tech mechanical engineering student, had become increasingly religious and was concerned about U.S. policy toward Muslims, a family member said. He voiced his opinions with many people on the Internet, authorities said. Canadian authorities said they had been monitoring radical Islamic chat rooms before making last week's arrest. Federal authorities accuse the two Georgia men of being involved in international terrorism activities. They are accused of making suspicious videotapes of the U.S. Capitol and three other Washington locations and traveling to the mountains of Georgia to conduct military-style training exercises. Sadequee allegedly provided Ahmed information on how to receive military-style training in Pakistan. Both are being held in federal custody. Sadequee also is accused of making false statements to law enforcement officers in connection with the trip he made with Ahmed to Canada in March 2005. A month after their Canadian visit, Ahmed and Sadequee traveled to Washington and allegedly made the videotapes of the Capitol, the Masonic Temple, the World Bank and a fuel storage facility. The two were preparing to send the videos to "overseas brothers" prosecutors said. The images showed up on the computer of British terror suspect and Internet mastermind Younis Tsouli last October, according to The Wall Street Journal. Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, which tracks terrorists, has identified Tsouli, 22, as the notorious Internet hacker Irabi (Arabic for "Terrorist") 007 who has posted videos of beheadings and how-to bomb manuals on the Internet and hacked into some American university Web sites. An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the Georgians' possible tie with Tsouli, who is in custody in England and has been charged with plotting a car bombing. Focus close to home Ahmed has cooperated with investigators, according to court papers. Few details of his cooperation have been made public, but a person familiar with the investigation said Ahmed does not know the full names of the people he met in Canada. But he remembers meeting, the person said, a man named "Jamal" and a "James." Jahmaal James, a Canadian suspect, has been connected to Ally Hindy, perhaps Canada's most controversial cleric. Hindy, who emigrated from Egypt, is well known in Canada for his relationship with reputed al-Qaida member Ahmed Said Khadr, who was killed in a gun battle in 2003 with Pakistani forces. Hindy's Salaheddin Islamic Centre is in an old lumberyard building on a busy thoroughfare on the east side of Toronto. About 2,000 people attend services there regularly. It runs a full-time school as well as a summer school program. Canadian officials have said that one of the mosque's founders is an al-Qaida commander in Iraq. In an interview, Hindy told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he knows nine of the 17 terrorism suspects. Five prayed at his mosque. He described Jahmaal James as a "very simple guy" who told him months ago that "secret agents were bugging his [James'] house." Hindy said James told him he wanted to go to Pakistan, but Hindy advised against it because such a trip would bring him under heavy scrutiny. Ahmad, the accused ringleader who allegedly met with the Atlanta men, is "a little problematic," Hindy said. Ahmad is accused of letting two of the men charged this week use his credit card to rent a car and buy guns in Ohio. The men were caught. "Maybe he was learning to shoot to go to Afghanistan," said Hindy, who has not been charged with any crime but who says he has been under constant surveillance. Hindy said that angry young Muslims often tell him they want to go overseas to fight for Islam. But Hindy, who calls Canada a comfortable, welcoming place, suggests that they focus closer to their homes. "You start in your local area," he said he tells them. "You change things where you live." He said he tells them to steer a peaceful course. But the message isn't always peaceful. On the other side of Toronto, some boyhood friends of Ahmad's often visited Al-Rahman Islamic Centre, a small mosque in a strip mall in Mississauga, a city of 700,000 west of Toronto with a large immigrant population. Three years ago, fundamentalists gained control of the mosque, said Tarek Fatah, a leader of a Muslim organization that espouses secularism and moderation. Six of the 17 suspects attended that mosque. Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, the oldest of the suspects, built a following of impressionable young men, Fatah said. His statements were often fiery, Fatah said. Jamal once told a crowd at the center that Canadian soldiers were raping Muslim women in Afghanistan. John Thompson, director of the Mackenzie Institute, a Canadian think tank, described suspects like Ahmed, Sadequee and the others as the "jihad generation," born and raised in North America but recruited into radical thinking. Such "homegrown" radicals could become more dangerous because they are insidious, Thompson said. "There's not much more we can do with the jihad generation except to monitor them more," he said. Staff writer Julia Malone contributed to this article. <http://images.clickability.com/pti/spacer.gif> Find this article at: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/0611mettoronto.html [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Protect your PC from spy ware with award winning anti spy technology. It's free. http://us.click.yahoo.com/97bhrC/LGxNAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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