Author: Jim Bronskill
Publication: Canadian Press
Date: February 8, 2004
URL: http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=1cca004a-745c-45f0-bf98-8be512d670e6
South American-based terrorists
linked to Osama bin Laden allegedly plotted an attack on Jewish targets
in Ottawa in an effort to undermine Middle East peace talks.
The plan to assault unspecified
landmarks in the Canadian capital, as well as cities in Argentina and Paraguay,
was thwarted by authorities in December 1999, says a new U.S. Library of
Congress report.
The study also details how Hezbollah
operatives active in South America have funnelled large sums of money through
Canada in recent years to finance operations in the Middle East.
The findings are among the latest
to suggest Canada has become not only a staging ground for international
extremists but also a potential target for attacks.
The report, Terrorist and Organized
Crime Groups in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of South America, was completed
last July by the congressional library's federal research division under
an agreement with the Director of Central Intelligence Crime and Narcotics
Center.
The centre, staffed by members of
the U.S. intelligence community, reviews and analyses information about
illegal drug trafficking for American leaders and law enforcement agencies.
The report, drawing on an extensive
range of open sources, concludes various Islamic terrorist groups have
used the tri-border area - where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet -
for fundraising, recruiting and plotting terrorist attacks in the region
and elsewhere in the Americas.
It says the tri-border area's terrorist
and organized crime activities are assisted by corruption of local officials.
The region features one of the most important Arab communities in South
America, numbering as many as 30,000.
Suspected Hezbollah terrorists used
the area as a base for carrying out two major assaults in Buenos Aires
in the early 1990s, one against the Israeli Embassy in March 1992, the
other against a Jewish community centre in July 1994, the study notes.
"Since the 1994 attack, Islamic
terrorists in the TBA have largely confined their activities to criminal
fundraising and other activities in support of their terrorist organizations,
including plotting terrorist actions to be carried out in other countries,"
says the study.
Bin Laden's al-Qaida network has
reportedly had "an interest and a presence" in the region since the mid-1990s,
although some are skeptical of that claim. Both bin Laden and al-Qaida
lieutenant Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are said to have visited Brazil in 1995.
By mid-1999, Argentina's Secretariat
for State Intelligence was investigating Islamic extremist groups in the
tri-border area allegedly operating under bin Laden's orders, the study
says.
Agents began taping telephone calls
to the Middle East by extremists in Ciudad del Este, the second largest
city in Paraguay, and Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. They also secretly filmed
meetings of the Shi'ite and minority Sunni groups of the area's Muslim
community.
Co-ordinated police raids in the
region's three principal cities on Dec. 22, 1999, reportedly thwarted a
plot by terrorists under the control of bin Laden and Hezbollah leader
Imad Mouniagh to ``stage simultaneous attacks on Jewish targets'' in Buenos
Aires, Ciudad del Este and Ottawa ``in an attempt to undermine the Middle
East peace process,'' the report says.
It provides no details about the
suspected plots, which were noted in the Paraguayan media at the time but
garnered little attention elsewhere, coming almost two years before the
eye-opening attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Individuals rounded up in the raids
but later released included "operatives of Hamas and Hezbollah, as well
as a suspected Iranian intelligence agent."
Senior members allegedly involved
were Hezbollah's Assad Ahmad Barakat and Mohamed Ali Aboul-Ezz Al-Mahdi
Ibrahim Soliman of the Egyptian extremist group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
- the latter group reputedly linked to bin Laden's al-Qaida.
Both men apparently fled and were
later arrested in connection with other events.
Police foiled the alleged plot to
attack Ottawa and other cities just eight days after the arrest of Ahmed
Ressam of Montreal, caught trying to sneak explosives from British Columbia
into the United States. Ressam, the would-be "millennium bomber," was convicted
of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport.
In September 2001, a Paraguayan
SWAT team raided a Ciudad del Este shop run by Barakat, seizing material
including training courses for suicide bombers and financial statements
totalling $250,000 in monthly transfers to the Middle East.
A Paraguayan prosecutor accused
Barakat and Saleh of sending money to terrorist bank accounts in various
countries.
"Specifically, they sent half a
million dollars to Canada, Chile and the United States (New York), and
bank drafts of $524,000 US to Lebanon," the report says.
"Paraguayan police found a letter
from the Hezbollah commander congratulating Barakat for financing activities
in the Middle East."
In February 2000, Paraguayan authorities
arrested Ali Khalil Mehri, considered one of the principal Hezbollah fundraisers
in the region. Among the items seized in a raid on his apartment were records
of money transfers to Canada, Chile, Lebanon and the United States of more
than $700,000 US.
Mehri was charged with funnelling
the proceeds of counterfeit software to Hezbollah, but escaped from prison
and fled to Syria.
