Alakazaam,Alakazapped

The Police forces from just about everywhere gathered this morning in Toronto to announce they had uncovered a massive terrorist plot to do damage there. They had arrested 15 'sorta middle eastern' males with 3 tons of fertilizer and had previously stopped three others returning to Canada with some pistols purchased in the 'Home of the Brave and land of the .45'.

Apparently the plot had been 'surveilled' for the past two years after being dicovered by a couple of school kids who had reported a web site they had come across.

The fifteen are described as Canadian citizens from 18 to 26 years 'who have been here for quite some time'. Some seemed to be wearing Afghan-type white clothing when arrested, others were in prison tyveks. Most seemed to be bearded. Just like your red-blooded Arabic-Canadians - or, at least, none I know.

Apparently these fellows had been training secretly at a 'base north of the city' - the police reported military training with weapons, but no details were given. I wonder just where 15 young guys the the money to rent, or buy, a farm north of Toronto? It would have to be big enough and cheap enough, or isolated enough from neighbours to avoid the noise complaints to local authorities that big booms engender in rural areas. And as we all know you have to go a good bit north before you an find that kind of isolation. Probably north of Parry Sound where they wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb to any Charley Farquarson type who might come across them.

I could see them picking up that three tons of fertilizer from the local Co-op - "Is that for farm use?" - no PS or GS taxes. Just put it on the Abdullah account. Forget about the garden centre or Crappy Tire, they don't carry that much fertilizer, but WalMart might. "3 tons 35-0-0 to the garden centre". Debit? Would you like cash back?

This must have been the trigger mechanism that caused the raid, and where were these terrorists going to bomb? Why, CSIS headquarters of course, right beside the twin jewels of TO - the tower and the stadium. Nefarious bastards! According to CSIS they had been down there taking pictures and casing the joint. Apparently they had gotten wind that CSIS was onto them, maybe because CSIS agents had interviewed some of them!

"Good afternoon Mr. Abdullah, I'm from the Filterqueen Vacuum company. Have you got a few minutes for a demonstration? I'd like to make you a present of this hi-tech tape recorder in return for letting me show you this fine product. To show you its molecular sucking power perhaps you'd have some ammunition or blasting caps or fertilizer we could sprinkle on your rug. Say, is this a real Iraqi carpet? I recognize the 'Tears of the Prophet' pattern. You wouldn't want to sell it?"

Or more directly. "Mr. Abdullah I'm from CSIS, that's the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, and I'm here to let you know we have your number. Yessir, the jig's up, we know all about your website and your plans that contravene the Criminal Code of Canada. But we don't want you to think that we're targetting you because of your nationality, race or religion - we would target anyone who aspires to wage Jihad in the land of the maple and the beevor. Say, that's a nice carpet ..."

I'm surprised that they were farting around with 3 tons of fertilizer. A couple of bags could have made enough bang to demolish a line of .... oops. Shouldn't say that. That would have affected everybody in Ontario, rather than some secret agents and passers-by in Toronto. That's why I don't think these guys are real, or even smart, terrorists - they certainly haven't been watching TV, or reading papers.

What scares me about this is the smugness of the 'we got 'em gang'. Somebody posted a 'Mounties always get their man' thing this afternoon. Somehow I think those two kids were instrumental in this. The 'terrorists' were quite dumb in assuming they could not be 'bugged', and didn't even tweak to CSIS interviews!

Now I'm sure that a purchase of three tons of a potential explosive would have been monitored. I'm sure that CSIS knew exactly why they were searching the car on its way back from the States. It is really foxy to get the summer student to pull them over for drug search. It was smart to be pretending to search the car while carefully observing the trio for give-away behaviour. They probably knew those guns were on them - after all hadn't the FBI been surveilling them in the States? So it was all that lulling them into a sense of false security that made one of the drop that loaded gun and give agents the reason they needed to search the others and find the guns and ammo on them. That is brave.

What were they going to do with these guys if they hadn't found anything, let them go?

I'm just skeptical enough to think that there might be some real terrorists living here. When they see this 'keystone cops' thing happening, all the hooplah for a bunch of doofi, it just might give them the impression that, if they're careful, they just might be able to pull something off. And this time there may not be two kids to find their web-site.