OTTAWA – An alleged Ottawa terror cell was involved in constructing improvised explosive devices – the kind that are killing and maiming Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, police say.
A year-long RCMP investigation that has arrested three people in Canada allegedly formed a “domestic terrorist group” in Ottawa that intended to construct remote-controlled bombs and had amassed schematics, videos, books, and other material used to build the explosives.
There was also “terrorist literature” and more than 50 electrical circuit boards seized in police raids carried out Wednesday that would have been used to detonate the bombs from a distance.
“This group posed a real and serious threat to the citizens of Canada’s national capital region,” Supt. Serge Therriault, head of criminal operations for RCMP’s A Division, told a news conference in Ottawa.
He said investigators decided to swoop in on the alleged terror cell with arrests in Ottawa and London, Ont. now in order to prevent suspects from providin money to their alleged international allies abroad that would have been used to purchase weapons and other material that was to have been used against Canadian and coalition forces fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
He noted that police moved in now to prevent an attempt to buy weapons to be used against NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.
Hiva Alizadeh and Misbahuddin Ahmed were arrested Wednesday in raids by police in Ottawa.
A third suspect, Khuram Sher, was arrested Thursday in London, Ont.
It is alleged that Alizadeh, Ahmed and Sher conspired with at least three other people between Feb. 1, 2008 and Aug. 24, 2010 in Ottawa, Iran, Afghanistan, Dubai and Pakistan to facilitate a terrorist activity.
Alizadeh, 36, appeared in court Thursday, charged with manufacturing or having in his possession explosives with the intent to endanger life or cause serious damage to property, or enable another person to do so, for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group.
He is also charged with directly or indirectly collecting, providing or making available property or financial services knowing that they will be used to benefit a terrorist group. Those offences are alleged to have occurred between September 2009 and Aug. 24.
According to court documents filed in Ottawa, the three conspired with an additional three named individuals to “knowingly facilitate terrorist activities” in Canada and abroad.
Those additional alleged conspirators are named in the court documents as James Lara, Rizgar Alizadeh and Zakaria Mamosta.
Misbahuddin Ahmed is charged with conspiracy and other unspecified terrorism charges. Ahmed, who was born in 1983 and stands about five feet, 10 inches tall, wore a dark, neatly trimmed beard and a beige pullover in court.
“He is in shock. That’s all I can say,” Ahmed’s Ottawa lawyer Ian Carter told reporters after the appearance.
Sean May, lawyer for Alizadeh, said the charges against his client were very serious.
“He seems to be taking the matter seriously and obviously very concerned about it,” May told reporters.
“They are very serious charges, no question about that. They are the most serious charges you can face except for a murder charge,” he said.
Both men were put over for a video appearance on Sept. 1.
Sher once auditioned for the reality TV show “Canadian Idol,” moonwalking across a Montreal stage and singing an off-tune version of Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated.”
Sher told judges on the popular reality show in 2008 that he hailed from Pakistan and was a fan of “hockey, music and acting.”
He sings an off-tune rendition of Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” with – as the show’s website describes – some “nifty” dance moves.
“Have you ever thought of being a comedian?” asks one of the judges of the 26-year-old.
Another remarks: “The dance moves were good, the singing, bad.”
One source close to the investigation said Sher was actually a Canadian-born physician and graduate of McGill University – quite a different persona from goofy contestant wearing a traditional Pakistani shalwar kameez and pakul hat as he performs robot dance moves and a Michael Jackson moonwalk.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is on a five-day tour of the Arctic, said that like all democratic nations, Canada faces an array of security threats.
“The networks that threaten us are worldwide; they exist not only in remote countries but through globalization and the Internet,” he said. “They have links in our country and all through the world.”
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