Toronto Arrests A Wake-Up Call: Soldiers - From Afghanistan
CNEWS ^ | June 5, 2006 | BOB WEBER

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Canadian soldiers stationed in Kandahar say recent arrests that may have foiled massive terrorist attacks in southern Ontario underscore the importance of their mission in Afghanistan - and should wake up Canadians to the fact that their country isn't isolated from problems elsewhere in the world.

"We're trying to keep the wolves away from their doors," said Master Cpl. Richard Weiss.

Police allege 17 people were involved in a plot to fashion explosives out of three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer - three times the quantity used in the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people in 1995. The explosives were to be used in unspecified attacks against Canadian targets.

Twelve of the men charged in Friday's massive police operation, who range in age from 19 to 43, live in Toronto, Mississauga and Markham, Ont.. Five are youths who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The charges allege that the men knowingly participated in a terrorist group and either received or provided terrorist training in Toronto and several other Ontario communities.

Two of the men charged - Mohammed Dirie, 22, and Yasin Abdi Mohamed, 24 - are already imprisoned in Kingston, Ont., after they were caught trying to smuggle guns across the U.S. border last August.

Cpl. Bryan Trochim said the fact that the men were all from Canada should convince people that fighting the Taliban adds to Canada's security as well as Afghanistan's.

"All these people are getting funding from the same place," he said.

"It does kind of bring home the point a little bit more that these guys are in your backyard. Every time you think about anything that's happening anywhere around the globe, it could easily be your home any day."

Cpl. Mike Emslie was careful not to be too alarmist over the arrests.

"It doesn't change anything for me right here, right now. I still feel that we are safe and our country's safe. We do everything to protect (our home) and everything here as well."

But Capt. Nathalie Auger, a nurse, said Canadians tend to assume the problems of the world won't affect them. Last weekend's arrests prove that assumption wrong, she said.

"When we looked at 9/11 people got rocked a little bit because it was south of the border, but I don't think people thought it could go north," she said.

"I'm here to support the troops that go out, but the guys and girls that go outside the wire every day, this is why we're here - partly - so that we can come here and help stabilize the country so that it doesn't spread further than these borders and doesn't come over to Canada and endanger our friends and families back home."

The possibility of large-scale terrorism in Canada should only add urgency to the Afghanistan mission, said Pte. Christy Laidlaw, a light armoured vehicle driver just back from Panjwai, where fighting has been concentrated over the past weeks.

"It makes the mission more important," she said. "They want to come to our home."

"Sometimes I think people are too complacent back home," said Weiss.

"They don't realize what we're trying to do over here. I hear people saying they want us to be out of here - well, there's a reason we're here.

"I've got family back there, so the more I do here, quite possibly, a little contribution will make a difference back there."

If terrorists do attack Canada, it won't deter soldiers like Laidlaw.

"We're not going to stop, they're not going to scare us out of our mission," she said. "I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing and the rest of the Canadian soldiers are too."

MG: We in the United States are grateful that Canadian security officials stopped the planned attacks.  Western democratic countries must take the Islamist threat seriously.  Our enemies are not nice people and they mean to kill or enslave us -- in this they have remained consistent for 1,400 years.