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A Canadian? arrested for terror plot

old medic

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Here we go again.  The bolded hi lites are mine. The US article calls him a native of Canada.
The Canadian article calls him a native of Pakistan, but it reads like he lives in Chicago and has
a citizenship of convenience.


2 Chicago men accused of plotting terrorist acts
October 27, 2009 10:48 AM
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/10/2-chicago-men-accused-of-plotting-terrorist-acts.html

Terrorism-related charges were filed against two Chicago men today, accusing them of plotting against targets in Western Europe, including "facilities and employees" of a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked riots in the Muslim world.

Charged are David Coleman Headley, 49, and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48.

Headley was described as an American citizen who changed his name from Daood Gilani. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the U.S. and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the conspiracy, according to a release from the U.S. attorney's office.

Rana, a native of Canada, was charged with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign conspiracy involving Headley and three other individuals.

Both men remain in federal custody, officials said.

Federal officials said there was "no imminent danger in the Chicago area," and added that the charges are not related to recent terror plot arrests in Boston, New York, Colorado, Texas and central Illinois.

Headley conducted surveillance of targets in Denmark beginning in 2008, and then reported to Ilyas Kashmiri, an operational chief in a Pakistani-based organization known as Harakat-ul Jihad Islami, which has links to al-Qaida, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.

Headley also allegedly communicated with another terror organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Headley and the people he communicated with coded their plan for attacks over the cartoon as "the Mickey Mouse Project," according to the affidavit.

He allegedly traveled to Denmark in January 2009 and visited two offices of the newspaper that printed the cartoon, Jyllands-Posten, in Copenhagen and Arhus. During his visits he claimed to be a businessman interested in advertising with the paper, according to the document.

Months of discussions led to Headley's planned flight to Pakistan to meet with Kashmiri, the affidavit said.

The plan was cut off by the FBI, which was intercepting communications to and from Headley, and he was arrested at O'Hare International Airport Oct. 3. The arrest was first reported by the Tribune in its Tuesday's editions.

Once in custody, Headley allegedly admitted to receiving training from Lashkar-e-Taiba and said he had worked with Kashmiri in planning the Denmark operation. A lawyer for him, Robert Seeder, declined to comment this morning.

Headley allegedly acknowledged the plan called for either an attack on the newspaper building or the killing of the newspaper's cultural editor and the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard.

After Headley's arrest, dozens of FBI agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 18 raided a Grundy County meat-processing plant owned by Rana that specializes in Islamic foods.

Rana was arrested at his North Side home the same day as the raid on his First World Management Services plant in Kinsman, a farming town northwest of Dwight.

Agents seized records from the plant, as well as a related North Side business also raided that day, said the source, who is familiar with the investigation.

Rana is accused of helping arrange Headley's travels overseas and conceal their purpose, and discussing potential targets for attack with Headley.

Rana financially supported Headley and his family even though he ostensibly did no work for him, the source said.

Rana's lawyer, Patrick Blegen, said his client denies the allegations.

"Mr. Rana is a well-respected businessman in the Chicagoland community," Blegen said. "He adamantly denies the charges and eagerly awaits his opportunity to contwst them in court and to clear his and his family's name.

"We would request that the community respect the fact that these are merely allegations and not proof. "

-- Jeff Coen


Canadian, U.S. man charged in alleged terror plot

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091027/terror_plot_091027/20091027?hub=TopStoriesV2

CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Tuesday Oct. 27, 2009 2:18 PM ET

A Canadian businessman has been arrested along with a Chicago man, on charges of helping to plot terrorist attacks against overseas targets, including the Danish newspaper that printed controversial cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed four years ago.

Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, was charged in a 48-page complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Chicago.

The Pakistani-born Canadian citizen "is the owner of several businesses including First World Immigration Services, which has offices in Chicago, New York and Canada," according to documents filed in court. His Canadian office is located in Toronto.

Rana also owns a farm in Kinsman, Ill., as well as a grocery store in Chicago. He resides primarily in Chicago.

David Coleman Headley, 49, was charged in a separate 39-page complaint that was filed Tuesday in the same court. Headley is a U.S. citizen.

Prosecutors have accused Headley of travelling to Denmark to pick out targets on two separate occasions, in January and July. Rana is accused of helping arrange his transportation.

It is alleged that the Jylands-Posten newspaper was among the targets of the plot. The newspaper printed a series of controversial editorial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in September 2005, which outraged the Muslim world.

Prosecutors also claim that Headley reported and attempted to report on his activities to individuals with ties to terrorism, including one person linked to al Qaeda.

The complaint against Headley alleges that he communicated with Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani terror leader, as well as a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba -- the terror organization that India believes is responsible for the deadly Mumbai attacks in November 2008.

Headley is charged with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the United States. He could receive a life sentence if convicted.

The 49-year-old Headley -- who changed his name from Daood Gilani -- has been in custody since Oct 3, when he was arrested at O'Hare International Airport by members of the Chicago FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Rana was arrested in his home on Oct. 18, also by members of the Chicago FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Rana and Headley are both charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorism conspiracy, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

In a statement released Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said "law enforcement has a duty to be vigilant to guard against not just those who would carry out attacks here on our soil but those who plot on our soil to help carry out violent attacks overseas."

With files from The Associated Press
 
Chicago terrorism case inverts a common fear
This time, it's a U.S. citizen accused of traveling outside the country to plot a terrorist attack.
By Sebastian Rotella
October 31, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror-chicago31-2009oct31,0,5942014.story

Reporting from Washington -  It is a worrisome first: an American accused of going to Europe to plot a terrorist attack there.

Recent arrests in Chicago underscore a growing concern among Western officials about the threat posed by U.S. militants who take advantage of their passports to travel easily around the world on violent missions.

"We never thought it could be persons from the U.S. coming here to commit attacks," said Hans Jorgen Bonnichsen, a former chief of Denmark's police security intelligence service. "This shows a new tendency."

The Chicago case centers on David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani American businessman who allegedly traveled to Denmark to plot an attack on a newspaper targeted by Islamic extremists because it published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

Headley, 49, becomes the latest of several U.S. citizens recently accused of direct contact with top Al Qaeda figures who enlisted them for terrorist plots. But he also stands out because he is older and more sophisticated than suspects in previous cases and, according to investigators, used his consulting business as a cover for clandestine militant activity overseas.

Headley also allegedly conspired with Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani militant group accused of carrying out last year's bloody, highly organized attacks in Mumbai. Those contacts intensify fears that the group shares Al Qaeda's determination to strike the West.

With officials saying additional arrests are possible, the case also reiterates a surprising reality: One of the world's most likely targets of terrorism today is placid Denmark, population 5.5 million.

"Until yesterday, the threat was mainly from homegrown groups," Bonnichsen said in a telephone interview. "This case shows a very strong connection to Al Qaeda groups in Pakistan. That is really a challenge and we can only handle it by depending on good international cooperation."

Denmark has confronted a barrage of propaganda and threats since 2005, when the Jyllands-Posten newspaper published caricatures of Muhammad. Police in 2007 arrested two South Asians for manufacturing bombs in a Copenhagen apartment, and in February 2008 broke up an alleged homegrown plot in which three suspects planned to assassinate the newspaper's cartoonist. Later, an Al Qaeda car bombing at the Danish Embassy in Islamabad killed six people.

Danish security forces keep close watch on their surprisingly fierce extremist underworld. But they had not expected the likes of Headley, who admits having visited the newspaper's offices in January on the pretext of wanting to advertise his Chicago immigration consulting company, according to an FBI complaint.

In January and during a second trip in July, Headley filmed video of potential targets during alleged scouting missions in Copenhagen and Aarhus for what officials say may have been a commando-style raid like the Mumbai attack.

Despite stepped-up security, Headley was able to talk his way into the newspaper's offices, according to the complaint.

"This is what Danish intelligence was most scared of," said Morten Skjoldager, author of "The Threat Within," which is about terrorism in Denmark. "The extremist environment in Denmark is so small that if you get in touch with someone in that world, it will be noticed by the intelligence services. But so far it seems he had no connections with Denmark."

Headley seems an especially effective operative because he does not fit the profile of the typical Islamic militant. He is older than suspects in other cases, such as Najibullah Zazi, the 24-year-old Afghan American charged last month with preparing bomb attacks in New York.

And in contrast to Bryant Neal Vinas, the Long Island high school dropout who pleaded guilty this year to conspiring with Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, Headley's purported work as an immigration consultant gave him an air of respectability. Nonetheless, the FBI complaint alleges that his company did little business and may have been just a front.

U.S. authorities have long feared that terrorists forged in Europe's large militant communities could try to take advantage of limited visa requirements to enter the United States and carry out an attack. Headley's travels reverse that concern.

Radicalization among Muslims remains rare in the U.S. compared even to small countries like Denmark. Western officials assume that Americans would be used by Islamic militants for attacks here. In Europe, police generally devote less scrutiny to U.S. visitors than to others, even to some of their own citizens of immigrant descent returning from South Asia or North Africa.

"It's a bit surprising," said Louis Caprioli, an executive at the GEOS security firm in Paris and former French anti-terrorism chief. "It's the first time we talk about an American leaving for Europe for a terrorist act. Maybe the United States is becoming a factory for terrorists."

Headley was born Daood Gilani in the United States and attended military school in Pakistan, his family's homeland. He changed his name in 2006 to "raise less suspicion" when traveling, the complaint says.

He also told FBI agents that he underwent training with Lashkar and had worked with the group for at least three years, authorities say.

Created by Pakistani security forces as an arm in the struggle for Indian-occupied Kashmir, Lashkar funnels recruits to Al Qaeda and participates in plots against the West.

Lashkar's English propaganda appeals to aspiring holy warriors in North America and Britain. Foreigners find it easier to reach Lashkar training camps because they are tolerated or supported by elements of Pakistan's security forces, according to Western anti-terrorism officials.

In another case, two U.S. men convicted on terrorism charges in Atlanta this year were part of a network of Britons, Canadians and Americans who were radicalized by Lashkar and traveled to its camps.

Headley developed the Denmark plot with a Lashkar operative in Pakistan and with Ilyas Kashmiri, a notorious militant chief who runs a training camp in Waziristan and has become a close Al Qaeda ally, the complaint says, citing surveillance and Headley's confession.

FBI agents arrested Headley on Oct. 3 at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago as he began a trip to Pakistan to meet with Kashmiri, the complaint says.

Militant groups remain eager for U.S. recruits because of their operational value, investigators say. Headley's handlers made the most of him as an undercover operative, at one point communicating with him about switching from Denmark to a plot in India, the complaint says.

During the exchanges, Headley allegedly used business terms as code, substituting company names for terrorist groups.

"The main thing is the business must go on," he wrote on Sept. 20, according to the complaint.

"I don't care [if] I am working for Microsoft or I am working [for] GE or Philips."

The true meaning, according to the complaint: Headley did not care which militant group he worked for as long as he could help carry out attacks.
 
Chicago terror suspect linked to Mumbai attacks
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091207/chicago_charges_091207/20091207?hub=World
The Associated Press
Date: Monday Dec. 7, 2009
CHICAGO  — A Chicago man accused of planning an armed attack on a Danish newspaper was charged Monday with conducting surveillance on potential targets in the Indian city of Mumbai before terrorist attacks in 2008 that killed 166 people.

David Coleman Headley, 49, was charged in a 12-count criminal information with six counts of conspiracy to bomb public places in India, to murder and maim people in India and Denmark, to provide material support to foreign terrorist plots and other offences.

Federal prosecutors also announced charges against a retired major in the Pakistani military, Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, for allegedly taking part in the plot to attack the Danish newspaper out of anger over 12 cartoons published in 2005 depicting the Prophet Muhammad that sparked outrage in the Muslim world.

According to the charges, Headley, a U.S. citizen, attended terrorist training camps in Pakistan earlier in this decade operated by Lashkar e Taiba -- a group that specializes in violent attacks on targets in India.

Headley, formerly named Daood Gilani, and Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Raha, 48, were charged in October with planning an attack on the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. The new charges add Syed to the list of defendants.

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said the investigation "remains active" and a team of prosecutors and FBI agents will keep seeking charges against other people responsible for the attacks.
 
This, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail doesn’t mention the word terrorist but it is obvious, to me anyway, that a racket like this offers excellent cover, allowing foreign terrorists to hide themselves here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/more-than-300-people-linked-to-suspected-case-of-citizenship-fraud/article1451454/
More than 300 people linked to suspected case of citizenship fraud
RCMP investigate after hundreds of applicants claim to live at same address

JOE FRIESEN

Monday, Feb. 01, 2010

More than 300 people who claimed to live at the same address in Mississauga are being investigated by the RCMP in what police suspect may be a massive case of citizenship fraud.
The case revolves around an address located in the same building as Palestine House, a Mississauga centre that offers language classes and settlement services to new immigrants and also acts as an advocate for Palestinian and Arab causes.

Citizenship judges were briefed on the file late last year and were warned to look for large numbers of immigration applicants claiming the same address, The Globe and Mail has learned.

The RCMP would neither confirm nor deny the investigation.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney didn't comment on this case specifically, but said he met recently with immigration enforcement officials who briefed him on the issue of citizenship fraud. He said it's a matter of increasing concern.

"There are a number of ongoing police investigations into this practice of people abroad hiring consultants to establish for them evidence of residency in Canada, to meet the three-year residency requirement, when, in point of fact, they are often living abroad most or all of that time," Mr. Kenney said.

Pay scales in foreign countries that vary according to nationality are acting as a new kind of catalyst for this kind of fraud, he added. In places such as Dubai, for example, an employee with a Canadian passport can earn a substantial premium compared to those from poorer nations.

"The notion is that there's a more costly labour market in Western countries. If these people can get a Western passport then they move up the salary scale," Mr. Kenney said.

No one actually resides at Palestine House, a school-house type of building with classrooms on the ground floor and an upper floor where office space is leased to a range of small businesses. Citizenship and Immigration Canada gave the centre $2.4-million for English-language training in a multi-year agreement last April.

A building manager at Palestine House, who spoke on condition he wouldn't be named, said his understanding is that the investigation is connected to a rented office suite on the upper floor. He stressed that those offices are leased by private entities and are not connected to Palestine House by anything other than a shared roof.

The building manager said he found brown government envelopes that came through the mail addressed to people who didn't live or work at Palestine House. He said the envelopes contained government cheques for the national child benefit, but the recipients weren't actually living in Canada. It was shortly after he noticed this discrepancy that he was paid a visit by the RCMP. That was in late 2007.

He said the person who was the subject of the police inquiries no longer has an office in the building and hasn't been seen for more than two years.

It's not known how many of the 300 or so citizenship applicants who claimed the Palestine House building as an address actually gained citizenship, or whether those applications are now under review. It's possible some were living in Canada and making genuine applications but used Palestine House as a mailing address.

In order to become a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident must prove he or she has lived in Canada for three of the four years preceding their application. The benefits of obtaining Canadian citizenship are considerable for the applicants, including access to subsidized health care and university tuition among many others.


Canadian citizenship provides more than just ”access to subsidized health care and university tuition”; it also provides easy entry, even for people, who, as Minister Kenny notes, may have never met the established residency requirements. 'Citizens of convenience' are not be trusted.
 
So when do we decide to get serious about terrorism?  I guess it's okay with most people that there are thousands of terrorism facilitators operating in Canada, just skirting the edge of the law, shipping hundreds of millions of defrauded and tax dollars to fund overseas ops.  Doubtless, the body count will come.  Whatever countermeasures anyone comes up with, the bad guys come up with something else.  Look at these two articles:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Al-Qaeda-planning-to-dress-up-suicide-bombers-as-Sikhs/572043

Al Qaeda planning to dress up suicide bombers as Sikhs

Al Qaeda is planning to dress up suicide bombers as Sikhs and security chiefs fear that Muslim extremists may hide the explosives inside Sikh headgear. Al-Qaida is plotting to dress like Sikhs to exploit religious sensitivities about removing traditional clothing.


And:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/body-scanners-no-match-for-latest-terror-ploy-surgically-implanted-bombs-20100131-n6jx.html

Body scanners no match for latest terror ploy: surgically implanted bombs
ANDREW HEASLEY
February 1, 2010 .

FULL body scanners at airports are useless against the latest technique reportedly being considered by terrorists - surgically inserting explosives inside suicide bombers' bodies - says one of Australia's leading counter-terrorism experts.


The bottom line?  No matter what we do, the bad guys will be able to find a way to counter it and cause mayhem.  And in all reality, the clowns with the bombs aren't really the ones who matter.  They matter when they go boom, but the people behind them are more important towards actually shutting down the organizations. 

Our privacy laws are ridiculous.  If someone stole your cheque book, wrote cheques to themselves and put them in their own account, neither bank would give me any information about either of you without a production order.  Banks fear being sued over privacy issues.  But the only people that need fear privacy issues are the criminals that work the system to their advantage.  Proceeds of crime investigations are beyond complicated to the point where more and more criminals just get to keep their ill gotten gains.  Terrorism is no different. 

Normal citizens need not fear investigation.  There is far too much crime/terrorism out there for any LEO to bother with looking into your bank records just to find out that you go to Adult Connection every three days.  People need to get over their oooooo---scary police state bogey man mentality and realize that we are losing this thing. 

But nothing will change until there is a sufficient body count.  No chance that will affect anyone we know though, right? 
 
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