They arrested seventeen alleged Islamist terrorists in and around Toronto on Saturday, most of them young and Canadian-born. They had bought three tons of ammonium nitrate, and are accused of planning to bomb targets in southern Ontario. Shock! Horror! How could this happen here?
Thought Canada refused to take part in the US invasion of Iraq, it does have several thousand troops in Afghanistan, and Ottawa is actively seeking closer ties to the US. Enough, perhaps, to motivate a bunch of radicalized young Muslim-Canadians who couldnÂ’t reach non-Canadian targets anyway.
Any terrorist attack on Canada is bound to be homegrown, because there is no shadowy but powerful network of international terrorists waging a war against the West. There are isolated small groups of extremists who blow things up once in a while, and there are websites and other media through which they can exchange ideas and techniques, but there is no headquarters, no chain of command, no organization that can be defeated, dismantled and destroyed. |