The behavior and characteristics of 19 Pakistani men arrested in Toronto bear striking similarities to the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, including the use of fraudulent student visas, the attendance of flight school and an association with a Muslim charity flagged by authorities for having ties to al-Qaida. The 19 were picked up by immigration-enforcement agents and officers from four Canadian police departments during pre-dawn raids throughout the Greater Toronto area last Thursday.
Some of the men were charged with immigration violations, while others are being held without any charges as a possible “threat to national security.” The arrests cap a seven-month investigation called “Project Thread.”
“They’re all related and it’s all part of, what we’re alleging, has to do with a group taking advantage of a system the immigration system here in Canada,” according to Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokeswoman Michele Paradis.
According to a four-page summary of the reasons for detention, it was the associations and a pattern of behavior that authorities held to be suspicious. According to the document, one man was taking commercial pilot lessons to qualify as a multi-engine commercial pilot. The flight path of the training flies over the Pickering nuclear power plant.
The men also appeared interested in explosives and in the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station outside Toronto, according to the document. There had been unexplained fires in at least two of the men’s apartments. The document said the men were in contact with unidentified sources who “have access to nuclear gauges” that contain small amounts of the isotope cesium 137, which can be used for making crude nuclear explosives.
In April, two other “associates of the group” were deemed suspicious when police found them outside the gates of the Pickering plant. “They requested that they be allowed to enter the perimeter in order to go for a walk on the beach”.
The detainees “appear to reside in clusters of 4 or 5" and “change residences in clusters”. The residences kept a “minimal standard of living” with most only consisting of a mattress and computer. One “cluster left an apartment during the night and discarded all of their belongings: mattresses, clothing and computer shells, apparently taking only the computer hard drive upon vacating the apartment.”
A Canadian immigration officer in Mexico City became suspicious in February of an application by one of the men for permanent residency to attend an Ottawa business college. The man had no apparent source of income, but showed a bank balance of $40,000. The school turned out to be a fraudulent operation. Investigators found that 31 Pakistanis had used the school to enter Canada.
U.S. Law Enforcement should take note of the above behavior as indicative of the presence of a possible terrorist cell.
Source: NY Times; Reuters; Informed Source
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