Is That All There Is?

"The act didn't take place. We disrupted the act."
"The individual identified expressed capacity and capability and intent but to specific ideology, I can't comment on that. It was a confirmed attack plan. There is motive, but I am not prepared to comment on that right now."
"From the initial information, it was a substantiated and credible attack plot, however, there was no indication where the attack was to take place, there was no specific targeting or time associated with it."
"The decision to arrest was not one because we had met any kind of threat to public safety. At no time was there a threat to public safety. A decision to arrest was made strictly on the collection of evidence and accumulating a substantial amount of evidence that allowed us to charge."
"I can't speak to the specifics of their communication or the relationship between the two [arrested]. They do travel in company, one with the other. They have an informal relationship, a friendship."
"They have been part of the investigation throughout the course of its duration and both were arrested simultaneously under the same reasonable and probable grounds."
RCMP Supt. Peter Lambertucci

A minor, who can't be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, appeared in a Kingston courtroom Friday to face two charges related to an anti-terrorism investigation. (Laurie Foster-MacLeod sketch)

"I know my son, he didn't think about that [terrorism]."
"He like Canada. He like the safety in Canada. How could he think about that?"
"It's fake news about my son. I trust my son. I know he cannot do anything against any human."
Amin Alzahabi, father of Hussam Eddin Alzahabi, 20

Comprised of father, mother, two sons and a daughter, the Alzahabi family, originally from Syria, arrived in Canada as refugees in 2017. They were co-sponsored by four churches in Kingston, Ontario. The Alzahabi's 20-year-old son was arrested at the same time as a juvenile, also a refugee from Syria had been arrested, but cannot be named under Canadian law because he is underage. The 20-year-old was released shortly following his arrest, while the juvenile remains in custody.

It was the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation that had alerted Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police to a terrorist plot in the making. Which moved Canadian police to undertake an investigation. That investigation included, of all things, night-time propeller airplane surveillance. The plane could be heard flying night after night, for hours in the area of Kingston where these two Syrian refugee families live, and residents were perplexed about why a plane would be in the air at night, arousing people from their sleep.

If that seems clumsy as an investigative technique, it was. And that growing mystery of a continuous plane sounding at night over sleeping houses began to appear on the Internet and in the print news media, bringing unwelcome attention to events that investigative authorities clearly would have preferred to remain under cover. And which, in the final analysis spurred them to act given the concern that this growing public awareness would disrupt the investigation and end in suspects being alerted and conceivably hiding evidence and making themselves scarce.

Finally, the mystery was solved when the RCMP and Kingston police went public. And though in doing so the country heard that another terrorist threat had been apprehended, the truly vital facts that might explain much more are all absent: motive, ideology of those concerned, what manner of fissionable material was found, how much of the explosives were seized, the identity of the youth, who was to have carried out the bombing, and were there any other suspects involved, much less what drew the attention of the FBI to the plot to begin with?

Police officers carry evidence from one of the homes in Kingston, Ont., that were raided. Two people were arrested and a minor has been charged with a terror-related offence. (Lars Hagberg/Canadian Press)

"He's exercising his legal rights and he cares about Canada's safety as much as the next person."
"He's here studying, he's doing everything that he can to be a contributing member to society and there is no reason to malign him or treat him differently than anybody else."
Hussam's lawyer, Mohamed El Rashidy


"What we know about terrorism in Canada is that individuals rarely act alone. They generally have people who they're getting materials or financial support from or encouragement." 

"[In order to lay the terrorism charge, officials would have had to have had a clear ideological link, so police are likely remaining silent because it relates to an ongoing investigation.] The individual would have had to been motivated by political, religious ideological considerations so they know what that is."
"Whatever the motive is could tip off other individuals."
Former CSIS senior strategic analyst Jessica Davis 

The youth (under age 18 has been charged with terrorism offences. His friend, arrested, then released was snot charged. "Precursor elements" of a bomb, an explosive substance and bomb parts were seized from the home of the adolescent. This ongoing investigation began in December when the FBI first alerted the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team of the RCMP that a bomb plot in Canada was underway.

The charge against the younger of the two suspects was: knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity and counselling someone to set off an explosive at a place of public use with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury. We also know however, that this is all false, concocted by the FBI and the RCMP -- because we would betray ourselves by expressing racism and Islamophobia were we to contradict a Syrian refugee who has labelled all of this "fake news".

In any event, everything's fine, folks. The 'act' didn't take place. But somehow Canada appears to have acquired a presence of maleficent intent lurking among those for whom humanitarian instincts mandated that generosity and a helping hand be extended to refugees from the world of Islam where a ruler saw fit to massacre his own. From cradle to grave. Whose grave remains the question.