Magic Statistics

The first of 18 arrests in the alleged homegrown Canadian terrorist conspiracy occurred almost three months ago.  Since then, an investigation by the National Post has uncovered several connections between the Canadian suspects and Pakistan.  Today, in the first of a four-part series, the Post reports on a terrorist training camp in Balakot, Pakistan, located in a mountainous region near the country’s eastern border with Kashmir.

Young Muslim volunteers from Pakistan and beyond have long trekked here to Balakot to train for jihad, and one of them was allegedly a Canadian named Jahmaal James.

A National Post reporter was able to locate the Balakot training camp and hike to its periphery, where an outbuilding could be seen, possibly a guard post.

Locals cautioned against visiting the "mujahedeen" camp, saying it was guarded by armed men who detained intruders as spies.

The 23-year-old Mr James visited Pakistan for four months beginning in November 2005, where he is said to have trained at the Balakot camp.  His family denies the allegation.

This is only one of many links between the Canadian suspects and Pakistan.

At least four suspects associated with the Toronto group are believed to have attended, or attempted to attend, training camps in Pakistan. Another was a member of a hardline Pakistani religious sect that advocates global Islamic rule, and several others are of Pakistani origin.

While the Toronto plot has been widely described as the work of "homegrown" Canadian terrorists, the Pakistan connection has investigators probing the extent to which the group was influenced by the South Asian nation's rampant radicalism.

Indeed, counterterrorism authorities in several Western countries have been finding links between domestic terror plots and Pakistan, particularly to an emerging player in the global jihad called Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.

With the post-9/11 removal of the Taliban as Afghanistan’s governing force and the attendant interdiction of al-Qaeda’s paramilitary training centres there, the preferred site for training would-be jihadists has shifted to Pakistan.  Lashkar-e-Tayyiba runs a network of such camps in Pakistan, although the one at Balakot is controlled by another terrorist organisation called Jaishe Mohammed.

Jaishe Mohammed was also banned by the Canadian government, which accuses it of calling for "the destruction of America, India, and all infidels worldwide."

But Jaishe Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba remain active and are among the largest armed factions fighting to make Indian-controlled Kashmir part of Pakistan. Meanwhile, there are indications that Lashkar has been transforming itself from a regional group focused on Kashmir into a global terror network.

Over the past two years, Lashkar has begun to open its doors to foreign Muslims, taking on the role that had previously been played by Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. Arrests in Australia, Britain, the United States and Canada have all been linked back to Lashkar.

Like Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba is believed to have become involved in social and community projects.  Jamaat ud Dawa, an organisation of Islamist mosques and madrassas viewed as a front for Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, operates a health care clinic, school, and mosque in Balakot.  Jamaat subscribes to the radical Wahabist interpretation of Islam—the same anti-Western ideology that inspired al-Qaeda.

Read the whole thing.

Previous related posts:

• Arrested UK man linked to alleged Canadian terrorists
• UK detainee linked to terror group in Pakistan

In a series of raids Friday night and early this morning, British police have arrested 14 men suspected of recruiting and training prospective terrorists and plotting other terrorist activities.  Twelve were apprehended at a restaurant in south London.

The men, who are thought to be mainly young British Muslims of Pakistani origin, were held in London overnight, with several arrested at a Chinese restaurant in the Borough area of the city.

Detectives were today carrying out searches at at a large number of residential properties across London as well as at an Islamic school in Mark Cross, near Crowborough, East Sussex.

The men were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 after months of surveillance involving Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch and MI5.
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Security sources said the investigation was focusing on the alleged recruitment and radicalisation of young British Muslims and the facilitation of training for terrorism purposes.

Forty police wearing riot gear swept into the restaurant around 10:00 pm Friday evening, when it was full of diners, including children.  The restaurant was sealed off while questioning was underway.

Diners were told they were being questioned under the Terrorism Act.

Each was asked to give their name and address, after which those arrested were taken away in handcuffs.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said police acted following lengthy surveillance and investigation.

"The arrests in south and east London follow many months of surveillance and investigation in a joint operation involving the Anti-Terrorist Branch, Special Branch and the Security Service."

The spokesman added that the arrests were not linked to the recent alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners or the July 7 bombings in London.

The Islamic school in East Sussex, southeast of London, which is also a focus of investigation, has been sealed off while about 100 officers conduct a search.