RCMP identify six terror bomb plot suspects; accused of financing weapons 10-08-29 9:40 AM

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News /

RCMP identify six terror bomb plot suspects; accused of

financing weapons

Two men, Hiva Alizadeh (left) and Misbahuddin Ahmed, were charged with terrorism offences in an Ottawa court on Thursday. Dave Clendining/Postmedia News

Stewart Bell, National Post · Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010

OTTAWA — Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh is a slight man with a brown skullcap and a full black beard. His first name is Kurdish, his
last Iranian, but he is a citizen of Canada. He is also the suspected ringleader of an Ottawa terrorist cell the RCMP said on
Thursday was financing insurgent attacks on Canadian Forces and planning a bombing in Canada.

Police said searches had turned up a “vast quantity” of terrorist literature, videos and more than 50 electronic circuit boards
designed specifically for remotely detonating explosive devices.

“The group posed a real and serious threat to the citizens of the National Capital Region and Canada’s national security,” RCMP
Chief Superintendent Serge Therriault told reporters at an Ottawa news conference.

The arrests, two on Wednesday and one on Thursday were the result of a year-long investigation that was described as extensive
and exhaustive. Project Samosa began last September with a tip from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which had been
monitoring the evolving group for more than a year. The RCMP put A-INSET, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team
in Ottawa, on the case. About 100 officers did nothing else for almost a year. The Ottawa Police Service, Sûreté du Québec and
Canada Border Services Agency all got involved.

The London Police Service as well as Mounties in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec helped.

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RCMP identify six terror bomb plot suspects; accused of financing weapons 10-08-29 9:40 AM

The focus of the investigation was Mr. Alizadeh, a married 30-year-old who worked at a Winnipeg grocery store and studied
English and electronics engineering at Manitoba’s Red River College before moving to Ottawa.

During a visit to Iran, Mr. Alizadeh is suspected of crossing the country’s eastern border into Afghanistan. It was during that trip
that he was allegedly trained to build explosive devices.

Police have not named the group that trained him, possibly because they do not know. Many insurgent groups operate in
Afghanistan and are affiliated with al-Qaeda.

The RCMP said only that Mr. Alizadeh belonged to “a terrorist group with links to the conflict in Afghanistan.” He was also
allegedly part of what the RCMP called a “domestic terrorist group operating in Canada.”

Its alleged members included Ottawa medical radiation technologist Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, and Khurram Syed Sher, 28, a
resident of London, Ont., who had once auditioned for Canadian Idol.

They were allegedly working with three others, James Lara, Rizgar Alizadeh and Zakaria Mamosta. Senior officials said the three
alleged co-conspirators were now overseas and thought to be in Dubai, Iran and the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.

Throughout the investigation, officials were disturbed by the profile of the men they were following. All three arrested were
Canadian citizens who had become radicalized by the al-Qaeda ideology of violence.

“There are certain individuals in Canada who have adopted an ideology inspired by international terrorist groups who promote
heinous violence to achieve their goals,” CSIS Assistant Director Raymond Boisvert told reporters, adding Canada had been
identified as a potential target by “individuals who espouse a violent Islamist ideology.”

Police said they conducted extensive surveillance of the suspects. While the men allegedly talked about conducting terrorist attacks
and made preparations, their plans were considered ill-defined. Police were never certain exactly what they were plotting.

“I would say that they were at the beginning of the planning process,” said Chief Supt. Therriault, the officer in charge of criminal
operations at the RCMP’s A Division. He said they were probably “months away” from an attack.

“There remained, throughout, a varied degree of imminence to the threat, whether they were going to conduct an attack or not and
how it was going to be done,” he said.

When the investigators suspected that Mr. Alizadeh was planning to leave the country, and that he was also about to transfer
money overseas, police decided it was time to arrest him and dismantle the group.

“Part of the decision to make the arrests at this time was to prevent the suspects from providing financial support to terrorist
counterparts for the purchase of weapons, which would in turn be used against coalition forces and our troops,” Chief Supt.
Therriault said.

Early on Wednesday morning, Ottawa police and RCMP officers arrested Mr. Alizadeh at a seventh-floor apartment in Ottawa. Mr.
Ahmed was arrested at a nearby townhouse. On Thursday, Mr. Sher was arrested in London.

The charge sheet filed at the Ottawa courthouse accuses the three men of conspiring to “facilitate a terrorist activity.” Mr. Alizadeh
faces two additional charges: financing a terrorist group and “making or having in his possession an explosive substance.” Police
said the latter charge refers to electronic components for detonating IEDs.

“Those are the three charges, but we’re at the very, very preliminary stages of the thing so we’re just getting information today,”
Mr. Alizadeh’s lawyer, Sean May, said after his client made a brief court appearance.

Messrs. Alizadeh and Ahmed were returned to jail pending an appearance by video on Wednesday.

At Thursday’s news conference, the RCMP made no mention of al-Qaeda. But Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told reporters in
Winnipeg that, generally speaking, “there is undoubtedly al-Qaeda influence in some of the radicalization that is taking place.”

He added, “al-Qaeda, let’s be clear, is not necessarily a centralized organization, it has what we can call branch offices. And these

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RCMP identify six terror bomb plot suspects; accused of financing weapons 10-08-29 9:40 AM

branch offices can influence individuals worldwide. Canada is not immune from that type of influence.”

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