OTTAWA -- Canada's top counterterrorism policeman says that of the hundreds of national-security investigations he has open, a handful are keeping him from sleeping at night.
RCMP Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonnell didn't delve into specifics of ongoing investigations, but he did tell a conference in Ottawa yesterday that terrorist "wannabes" in their teens and 20s are among the biggest threats to Canada.
"The gutting of core al-Qaeda brings us to today's threat," he said in a speech to government officials and security contractors. "I look at them as terrorist wannabes.
"Being a wannabe does not make them any less dangerous," he said, according to a text of his remarks. "In fact I would argue it makes them more dangerous."
Print Edition - Section Front
More National Stories
- A policeman looks down on dangerous drivers
- Globe journalists honoured with six awards
- How a woman's death and sick passengers lead to fears of a train-borne pandemic
- Inquiry unlikely to recommend abandoning tasers
- Tragedy continues to haunt violence-torn Winnipeg family
- Canada orders vitamin D study
- Go to the National section
Commissioner McDonnell, who two years ago announced the arrests of 18 mostly young terrorism suspects in Toronto, added that the individuals he worries about most still tend to be Canadian residents aged 20 or so.
He said they are attracted to "sound-bite Islam." Arguing they are less religious scholars than misfits, he said they are motivated by Internet propaganda depicting atrocities against Muslims.
Commissioner McDonnell made his remarks at a "critical infrastructure" protection conference at the Chateau Laurier.
Bureaucrats in attendance urged speakers, including Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, to fund measures to protect airports, energy pipelines, transit systems and cities from possible attacks.
The 2006 RCMP investigation focused on an alleged plot to bomb government targets in Toronto.
Critics who have always questioned the use of police informants have lately suggested that the case must be falling apart, given that only 11 of the original 18 suspects are now set to face trial.
Commissioner McDonnell insisted it was not an admission of error for the Crown to give some individuals second chances through the signing of peace bonds.
Police, he added, have to be very cautious about dismissing peripheral suspects.
Such individuals can evolve into central figures, he said, raising the example of the perpetrators of the so-called 7/7 subway bombings in London in 2005.
The ringleaders had been dismissed as small fish by U.K. police a year before they killed dozens of commuters.
A newer British conspiracy was generating some chatter in the corridors of the Ottawa conference yesterday.
Crown prosecutors in London are airing wiretaps generated by an alleged 2006 conspiracy to blow up passenger planes, including Air Canada jets, over the Atlantic Ocean.
The taped conversations of two London suspects, aged 27 and 30, indicate they were very concerned about getting the right sound bites into their propaganda.
A "martyrdom" tape in the making, aired yesterday, suggested one British suspect acted like a film director. "When you mention Allah [God] do that," he says.
"When you're making a point, point away, the hand movement, you're warning the kuffar [infidels] give a bit of aggression, yeah, a bit loudly ..."
The other man, the alleged speaker, then says, "This is from Omar Islam, the son of Islam, to the people of the world. To let you know the reasons for this action which inshallah [God willing] I am going to undertake.
"Firstly this is an obligation on me as a Muslim to wage jihad against the kuffar." He pauses to ask, "How did I do?"
According to the British evidence, his co-accused giving direction then replies: "Uh, it's good, it's good. Now I want you to... I wanted you, say a word with... to the hypocrites and dodgy scholars ... And I want you to say a word for the Muslims all over the world that we are suffering."
He adds: "Puff it up a bit. You understand?"
54