Canadian police foiled a homegrown terrorist attack by arresting 17 suspects, apparently inspired by al-Qaeda, who obtained three times the amount of an explosive ingredient used in the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, officials said.
In the US, the FBI said that the Canadian suspects may have had "limited contact" with two men who were recently arrested on terrorism charges in Georgia. About 400 regional police and federal agents participated in the arrests Friday and early Saturday.
"These individuals were allegedly intent on committing acts of terrorism against their own country and their own people," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement on Saturday. "As we have said on many occasions, Canada is not immune to the threat of terrorism."
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested 12 adult suspects, ages 19 to 43, and five suspects younger than 18 on terrorism charges including plotting attacks with explosives on Canadian targets. The suspects were either citizens or residents of Canada and had trained together, police said.
The group acquired 2.7 tonnes of ammonium nitrate -- three times the amount that was used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injured more than 800, said assistant Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner Mike McDonell.
The fertilizer can be mixed with fuel oil or other ingredients to make a bomb.
"This group posed a real and serious threat," McDonell said. "It had the capacity and intent to carry out these attacks."
Luc Portelance, assistant director of operations with Canada's spy agency, CSIS, said that the suspects "appeared to have become adherents of a violent ideology inspired by al-Qaeda," but that investigators have yet to prove a link to the terror network.
Five of the suspects were led in handcuffs on Saturday to the Ontario Court of Justice, which was surrounded by snipers and bomb-sniffing dogs. A judge told the men not to communicate with one another and set their first bail hearing for tomorrow.
Alvin Chand, a brother of suspect Steven Vikash Chand, said outside the courthouse that his brother was innocent and authorities "just want to show they're doing something."
FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said in Washington there may have been a connection between the Canadian suspects and a Georgia Tech student and another US citizen who had traveled to Canada to meet with Islamic extremists to discuss locations for a terrorist strike.
Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, US citizens who grew up in the Atlanta area, were arrested in March.
Officials at the news conference displayed purported bomb-making materials including a red cellphone wired to what appeared to be an explosives detonator inside a black toolbox. Also shown were a computer hard drive, camouflage uniforms, flashlights and walkie-talkies.
A flimsy white door that was riddled with bullet holes was on display, but no details about it were available.
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