OT: SHUT DOWN BOTH BORDERS!!

Canada has a long history of harboring political dissidents from a number of
different ethnic militant groups (perhaps as many as 50 organizations).
This is an outgrowth of the liberal refugee policies and generous social
welfare programs for which Canada is known around the world. In fact, the
Canadian government receives some 20,000 to 30,000 applications for refugee
status each year, and reportedly accepts more than half of the applicants.
Many of these refugees arrive in Canada without documentation, or with
forged or counterfeit documents, making it nearly impossible to verify a
person's true identity. Prior to November 2001, none of these people were
screened for criminal, terrorism or other concerns unless they requested
permanent residency in Canada. After the 9/11 attacks, the policy was
reformed: Canadian immigration officials are now free to deny asylum to
suspected terrorists, and database checks are now run on all asylum
applicants. But problems remain in dealing with undocumented arrivals or
those whose identities cannot be found in government databases.

Though U.S. policies are identical for visitors or immigrants passing
through either the northern or southern borders, they are much more
stringently enforced -- with a denser concentration of border checkpoints
and agents -- along the border with Mexico. In many places, it is possible
to cross the Canadian border by walking, jogging, swimming or boating -- or
entering through national parks, as has sometimes been the case with
would-be terrorists.

Refugees who have sought and received sanctuary in Canada have included
members of ethnic militant groups, such as Algeria's Armed Islamic Group,
various Palestinian factions (including Hamas), Hezbollah, the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam and Babbar Khalsa, a Sikh group. Many of these groups
use Canada as a place of refuge, and most use it as a base for fundraising
and political activity. However, some of those granted asylum have gone on
to commit terrorist attacks.

Perhaps the most notorious of the cases (and certainly the most
controversial) involving Canada were the twin bombings of Air India Flights
182 and 301, carried out by Babbar Khalsa in 1985. The bomb on Flight 182
exploded over the Atlantic Ocean and killed all 329 people aboard; the bomb
placed on Flight 301 exploded on the ground at Narita Airport in Japan,
killing two baggage handlers. There were several arrests in each case but
only one man, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was ever convicted. He was sentenced to
10 years in prison on charges related to the Narita bombing in 1991; in
2001, he was charged and pleaded guilty to his role in the Flight 182
bombing, for which he received an additional five-year sentence. As part of
the plea agreement, Reyat was expected to testify in the trial of two other
Flight 182 suspects. However, he later claimed he could not remember
anything, and the suspects were acquitted in March 2005.

The Canadian government was widely criticized for its handling of the case.
There were allegations that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
(CSIS) had conducted physical and electronic surveillance of group leaders
prior to the attacks, and employed an informant who might have played a
direct part in the attack. Later, following the acquittals of Sikh
separatists Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri in the Flight 182
case, outrage from relatives of the victims prompted the government to
establish a commission of inquiry -- exploring issues related to Canada's
counterterrorism preparedness.


Threats to the United States

On several occasions, Canada has been a point of entry for people who posed
specific threats to the United States.

Some may recall the case of Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian who was
convicted of plotting a suicide bombing against the New York subway system
in 1997. Mezer, who had been granted political asylum by Canada, reportedly
was stopped by U.S. authorities twice while trying to enter the country
illegally. His first two attempts to cross the border were made only days
apart, in June 1996 (Mezer was jogging across the border when he was
stopped the second time). His third attempt came in January 1997, when he
was stopped at a Greyhound bus station in Bellingham, Wash., along with two
other Arabs, after a successful border crossing.

At that point, Mezer was detained and, though he agreed to return
voluntarily to Canada, the country refused to accept him upon release from
U.S. custody, since he was not a citizen. What happened next involves a
maze of legal technicalities: Abu Mezer was eventually released on bond and
applied for political asylum in the United States. While that request was
pending, he moved to Brooklyn. He later agreed to depart the United States
voluntarily, in August 1997. His plans for a suicide attack against the New
York subway system, however, were to have been carried out in July -- a
month before he was required to leave the country -- had it not been for a
roommate who got cold feet and tipped off police to the plot the night
before it was to have occurred. Mezer and a co-conspirator, Lafi Khalil,
were arrested in an early-morning raid at their apartment, where police
found bombs assembled and ready for deployment.

The Millennium Bomb Plot

The best-known terrorism cases involving movement across the Canadian border
are, naturally, related to al Qaeda. Most prominent among these is the
so-called "millennium bomb" plot, for which Ahmed Ressam was arrested.
Ressam is a textbook example of someone who, in the words of the recent
State Department report, "capitalized on liberal Canadian immigration and
asylum policies to enjoy safe haven, raise funds, arrange logistical
support, and plan terrorist attacks."

In 1994, Ressam entered Canada under false pretenses, using a poorly altered
French passport to fly from France to Montreal. When Canadian immigration
officials confronted him about the document, Ressam admitted that the
passport photo had been altered and then immediately claimed political
asylum, saying that he had been tortured in Algeria because he had been
accused of arms trafficking and other terrorist activities. Immigration
officials released Ressam while a hearing on his asylum claim was pending
-- but he never showed up for the hearing, and his asylum claim was later
denied.

Ressam later testified, at his trial in the millennium bombing case, that he
supported himself from 1994 to 1998 with petty theft and welfare payments
he received from the Canadian government, as a potential refugee. By his
own account, he was arrested four times for theft; other criminal
activities involved credit card, financial and document fraud. During those
years, Ressam also acquired an authentic blank baptismal certificate, which
he completed and used to obtain an authentic Canadian passport.

In early 1998, Ressam flew to Pakistan and then was taken across the border
into Afghanistan, where he trained at al Qaeda's Khaldan facility. There,
he learned a range of skills, including training in small arms and urban
warfare as well as surveillance techniques, document fraud and bomb-making.
In 1999, after nearly a year of training, Ressam returned to Canada and
began making preparations to carry out an attack against the United States.
In fact, his return flight to Canada stopped over in Los Angeles; while
waiting in the airport there, he hit upon the idea of targeting LAX.

Although several of the men who reportedly had planned to assist Ressam in
the millennium plot were not able to gain entry to the United States or
Canada, Ressam managed to cobble together a team of acquaintances -- many
of whom were seeking refugee status while living in Canada -- to aid his
project. Mokhtar Haouari, a friend and fellow Algerian asylum-seeker living
in Montreal, provided financing and agreed to be a communications link with
Ressam's partner in the United States, Abdelghani Meskini. In November
1999, Ressam flew to Vancouver, where another Algerian asylum-seeker,
Abdelmajid Dahoumane, helped him rent a hotel room. There, the two men
brewed the explosives that Ressam later attempted to smuggle into the
United States via ferry -- traveling from Victoria, British Columbia, to
Port Angeles, Wash. Ressam was cleared by U.S. immigration in Victoria but
was arrested by a U.S. Customs inspector as he was preparing to exit the
ferry, and the plot was eventually outed.

Jihadist Connections

The post-9/11 annals of terrorism history contain several other mentions of
Canadian citizens who have been arrested by the United States or allied
countries. These include:

Abdurahman Khadr, a member of a fairly notorious family who was captured in
Afghanistan and imprisoned for a time at Guantanamo Bay. He is now living
in Toronto. Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, allegedly served as a finance
and logistics operative for al Qaeda and, before his death in a Pakistani
counterterrorism operation in 2003, reportedly had close ties to Osama bin
Laden. Some of Ahmed Said Khadr's other sons also are embroiled in criminal
cases: Omar Khadr remains imprisoned at Guantanamo for killing a U.S. medic
in a grenade attack in Afghanistan; Abdullah Khadr -- who is in Canadian
custody while an extradition request is pending -- has been indicted in the
United States for conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan,
conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, and conspiracy to possess a
destructive device to commit violent crimes.


Mohamed Mansour Jabarah, who was born in Kuwait but raised in St.
Catherine's, Ontario. Jabarah has pleaded guilty to several charges in
connection with a foiled plot to bomb U.S. embassies in Singapore and
Manila. The plans had been hatched prior to the 9/11 attacks but were not
discovered until after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Jabarah reportedly
was a key link between al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Jemaah Islamiyah
(JI) operatives in southeast Asia; he is said to have delivered cash from
al Qaeda to JI leader Hambali, who is believed to have planned the 2002
Bali nightclub bombings. Jabarah initially was arrested in Oman in 2002 and
sent to Canada. He then was sent to the United States and reportedly is
cooperating with American officials.


Mohammed Momin Khawaja, who was born in Canada to Kuwaiti parents and has
lived in Ottawa. Momin Khawaja is believed to have been an important link
between New York-based Mohammed Junaid Babar and a group of co-conspirators
in London, who were planning a string of attacks there. Babar was
identified as a potential problem following the 9/11 attacks, when he made
threats against the United States on a Canadian television program. Momin
Khawaja is the first person ever charged under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act
-- which is in itself significant, since the attacks he allegedly was
planning would not have been carried out on Canadian soil.


The recent State Department report labels several more people who are living
in Canada as known or suspected terrorists. These include Mohammed Mahjoub
of the Vanguards of Conquest, a radical wing of Egyptian Islamic Jihad;
Mahmoud Jaballah, a senior member of the Egyptian Islamist organization
al-Jihad and al Qaeda; and three suspected al Qaeda members.

In a very recent case, former Canadian resident Ehsanul Islam Sadequee has
been accused of conspiring with a Georgia Tech student, Syed Haris Ahmed,
to attend a militant training camp in Pakistan and planning terrorist
attacks against targets in the United States.

Ahmed was indicted in April on charges of conspiring to provide material
support for terrorism. Sadequee was interviewed at JFK International
Airport in August 2005 before boarding a flight bound for Bangladesh and
thus far, it is believed, has not returned to the United States. Federal
authorities since have filed an affidavit supporting an arrest warrant for
Sadequee that provides great detail about the allegations in the case.

The affidavit claims that Sadequee -- a U.S. citizen who attended high
school in Ontario -- made false statements to FBI agents when he was
interviewed about a March 2005 trip to Canada. Sadequee told the bureau he
had traveled alone, but the FBI had evidence that he and Ahmed had been
traveling together. The purpose of the trip, according to the affidavit,
was to meet with Islamist "extremists" in Canada. Ahmed reportedly said
during his interview that they discussed possible targets for a terrorist
strike in the United States, such as oil refineries, military installations
and the global positioning system, and made plans to attend a military
training camp in Pakistan.

The affidavit also notes that three people Ahmed and Sadequee met with in
Toronto are subjects of an FBI international terrorism investigation (and
thus, presumably, were under the scrutiny of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police and CSIS.) Also, Ahmed and Sadequee reportedly traveled from Georgia
to Toronto and back via bus. Though they still had to pass through
immigration and customs inspection points, the security procedures applied
to bus passengers are far less intensive than those used by the airline
industry.

Conclusion

In the grand scheme of things, suspects like Ahmed and Sadequee can be
viewed as examples of grassroots jihadists -- part of the evolution of al
Qaeda from a focused organization to a looser ideological movement. Such
jihadists are not likely to be major players in the international terrorism
scene -- but as illustrated by cases such as "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid,
London rail attacks cell leader Mohammed Sidique Khan or Ahmed Ressam, they
still are capable of causing significant, though localized, damage.

Jihadist sympathizers who attend training camps like those in Pakistan or
Afghanistan often become further radicalized, and -- history has shown --
frequently become involved in the planning or execution of a terrorist
attack upon leaving such institutions. This is why the FBI sought an arrest
warrant for Sadequee; charges of making false statements are not very
significant, but federal authorities clearly believe Sadequee has gone
overseas for training and they want to have a reason to detain him if he
returns to the United States.

Though the affidavit filed in Sadequee's case contains many interesting
details, there also are several significant omissions. For example, it
gives no indication as to the current location or activities of the Toronto
men who were the subject of the FBI terrorism investigation. It is not
clear whether federal authorities believe any of them have traveled
overseas with Sadequee to seek training, or whether they have remained in
Toronto to "capitalize on liberal Canadian immigration and asylum policies"
while fleshing out plans for potential attacks.

That, at its core, is likely the best explanation of why the Canadian border
is so frequently overlooked in discussions of immigration and U.S. border
security. American concerns about the southern border with Mexico are
deeply rooted in geography, history and culture and are, at bottom,
sovereignty issues -- whereas the threats that have emerged from Canada are
embedded in a more liberal political system.

Stated differently, the security risks to the United States arising from
Canada are not so much products of fundamental, structural issues as they
are the outgrowth of political attitudes and preferences. As a result,
these security concerns tend to command less emotion and attention -- but
they are, for all of that, no less real.
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