I woke up on Saturday morning, rolled out of bed and made a cuppa tea. “Terror plot near Toronto”, screamed my first email of the day and I almost choked on my chai masala (thanks, Abhi!). My blood pressure grew worse as I scoured the web for more and found only speculation, fabricated tie ins with Al Qaeda and fictitious “targets”. My five simple ‘W’s remained unanswered. Three days later a story has finally emerged in bits and pieces.

A report by the Toronto Star says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service began monitoring internet sites, which the suspects allegedly used, and in 2004 brought the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in on the case to facilitate a criminal investigation. Toronto mayor David Miller was informed of the investigation this past winter due to growing concerns about the groupÂ’s activity. Upon learning of their plot to build a bomb using ammonium nitrate, investigators intercepted the delivery of three tons of fertilizer to certain group members in a massive sting operation. There have also been reports of a connection between the Toronto group and two U.S. citizens, one was indicted while the other was arrested on terror charges earlier this year.

Shortly after the operation, on Friday night, RCMP officers arrested 17 Canadian residents on terror-related charges in a raid on their homes. Many of these suspects are long-time Canadian residents, five of them are teens under 18 years of age while the oldest two in the group are 30 and 43 years of age.

Details of the suspects are being revealed slowly as trusty journos bang on doors and beat on windows to answer that one as-yet elusive ‘W’. Who?The suspects are, well, multicultural, and include Somali, Pakistani, Indian, Egyptian, and West Indian backgrounds. Three appear to be of South Asian background in profile reports to date.

The first is Saad Khalid:

The 19-year-old is said to be a business student at the University of Toronto’s’ Mississauga campus. Khalid, who moved to Canada from Pakistan when he was 8, told his parents he was attending a job fair in Toronto on the day police stormed his parents’ townhouse. [Link]

Khalid became friends with two of the other suspects, Fahim Ahmad and Zakaria Amara, in school:

As the four high school years passed, the three friends began to change. They became more serious, at times depressed, devout in their faith. Khalid created R.A.C., the “Religious Awareness Club,” where he’d preach Islam during lunch hours in the school’s drama room. But there were still glimpses of the goofiness for which they were known. In a 2005 video made by Khalid and other friends, he spoofed the stylized Bollywood films. Khalid donned a hijab for his role as a forlorn lover and in one scene is shown running in slow motion across a field with his arms outstretched. [Link]

In 2005, Mr. Khalid… left a serious message to his graduating class at Meadowvale Secondary School, a public school with a large Muslim population. He wrote “La ilaha illallah,” a creed that every person has to say to be considered a Muslim and means there is no one worthy of worship but Allah. “Do you really believe in it? You do? Then prove it … .” he added “Before us there were many … after us there will be none … we are the ones … Allahu Akbar.” [Link]

In 2005, Khalid, Amara, and Ahmed began associating with Quayyam Abdul Jamal, the alleged mastermind, at Al Rahman Islamic Centre in Missaussauga:

Jamal, the eldest member of the group now charged, has been a key fixture at the centre since 1999, working as a caretaker who had enough free time to go and open the doors for several daily prayer sessions. An immigrant from Karachi, Pakistan, Jamal is married to a Canadian woman who converted to Islam and has four sons. “(Jamal) was very popular among the children and young people” recalled one member who asked to remain anonymous. “He played basketball, went camping and went fishing with them. He would sit down and talk with them — he hung out with the youth crowd.” Although Jamal’s radical Wahhabist and anti-Western views alarmed some of the centre’s members, many of the older members never perceived him as a dangerous extremist. [Link]

Five of the suspects will incur charges relating to the bomb plot. It is being alleged that 20-year-old Zakaria Amara, father of an 8-month-old child, purchased the ammonium nitrate. Saad Khalid, Quayyam Abdul Jamal, Asad Ansari, and Shareef Abdelhaleem are also being counted among the five.

A third (presumably) South Asian suspect is 25-year-old Steven Vikash Chand:

Friends of Mr. Chand say he hasn’t always been the devout Muslim he is today. Born into a Hindu family, the Toronto native converted to Islam about four years ago. Mr. Chand regularly distributed material about Islam at local public schools, encouraging youths to accept God, Mr. Ally said. He would sometimes go with Jahmaal James, 23, another of the 17 terror suspects arrested on Friday. About six months ago, Mr. Chand moved in to a basement suite near his mosque. The homeowner, Mohamed Attique, said Mr. Chand was quiet and polite. His son, Mohsin Attique, 17, said he thought Mr. Chand’s conversion to Islam may have caused tension between him and his family. [Link]

The suspectsÂ’ profiles are varied and no details of a unifying link between all suspects have been released. Interaction between some of the 12 adults can be broken down into groups depending on where they prayed, family connections, or in the case of Mohammed Dirie and Yasin Abdi Mohamed, who they went to prison with. The plot is still unfolding as further arrests are expected. Reaction to the arrests by the suspectsÂ’ families, friends, and neighbours has, for a large part, been disbelief. On Sunday the International Muslims Organization of Toronto mosque was vandalized in what clearly appears to be a hate crime. Toronto muslims, especially those who reside in areas where the arrests were made, are fearing a backlash. The atmosphere is tense as people start readying their pointer fingers. Starting off the blame-slinging (in a very public way, his name is in every newspaper) we have Mr. Aly Hindy, Imam at the Salaheddin Islamic Centre:

“Are we now the enemy within? We completely reject that,” Mr. Hindy said, outside court. The imam said that because “Afghanistan is closed now,” CSIS and the RCMP are targeting young Canadian Muslims, just so that departments can justify their budgets. “This is to keep George W. Bush happy, that’s all,” he scoffed. Mr. Hindy said he knew about half of the defendants, mostly from the times when they used to pray at his mosque. He conceded there might be one or two troublemakers in the group, but predicted most of the accused would be acquitted. More worrisome, the imam said, was the direction Canada is headed. Devout Muslims, he said, are at the moment more free to practise religion in Canada than in states like Egypt that crack down on fundamentalists. Mr. Hindy is afraid authorities here will round up people indiscriminately. [Link]

The sheer amount of international coverage given to this story makes one wonder if a fair trial can really be possible. Many questions surround the actual sting operation used to tie suspects to the bomb plot. But seeing as Hindy has been personally linked to at least two of the suspects, I canÂ’t wrap my head around why he would choose this particular time to launch an unfounded attack on CSIS or the RCMP. Now would be a good time to at least pretend to respect the arms of Canadian justice. Legal aims cannot be justified using illegal means. That goes for both sides of this fence we find ourselves teetering on.

Story = Developing…

+++ UPDATE +++

The CBC is reporting that Steven Chand’s lawyer, Gary Batasar, has made a statement regarding allegations against his client:

Batasar said he was given an eight-page synopsis of the allegations, including storming Parliament, blowing up some of the buildings and taking politicians hostage to demand the withdrawal of Canadian troops in Afghanistan. If the demands were not met, it is alleged, the hostages would be beheaded. The documents allege that Chand, 25, personally wanted to behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Yikes!