Washington – The arrests of 17 terrorism suspects in Canada over the weekend are part of a continuing, multinational probe into suspected terrorist cells in at least seven countries, a U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed Sunday.
The official said authorities are combing through evidence seized during the Canadian raids looking for possible connections between those arrested and at least 18 other Islamic militants who have been arrested in locations including the United States, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Britain, Denmark and Sweden.
The investigation began as separate probes into what authorities believed were localized cells of militant Muslim young men who shared an interest in radical ideology on the Internet in various countries and, to a lesser extent, in local mosques and training camps.
But over the past year, authorities in various countries began to see connections among the cells, in part through electronic monitoring of calls and e-mail, as well as surveillance of suspects, several U.S. officials said Sunday.
“The case is a very good example of how things work in the post-9/11 world. In this case, law enforcement and intelligence services from half a dozen places coordinated daily during a very complex investigation,” said the U.S. official.
Authorities would not describe the precise nature of the suspected connections among individuals arrested in Canada and elsewhere. The suspects arrested Friday night and early Saturday in Toronto had no evident connections to al-Qaeda, authorities said. But they were actively conspiring to blow up undisclosed Canadian targets.
