Canada will ‘recommit’ to combating homegrown terrorism, Foreign Affairs Minister

Sun news

Toronto Star

By Tonda MacCharles 

OTTAWA — Canada is not the only country to confront the problem of radicalized youth who mount terror attacks at home or abroad, said Conservative Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.

Baird, on a Middle Eastern tour, spoke to reporters by teleconference from Abu Dhabi Tuesday, the day after CBC revealed the identities of two young London, Ontario adults killed in a January attack on a gas plant in Algeria.

The CBC named Ali Medlej and Xristos Katsiroubas [photo], two high school friends, as the men whose remains were identified, and it suggested police are investigating potential ties to others in this country.

The well-coordinated siege — believed carried out by an Al Qaeda-affiliated group with insider knowledge of the plant compound — and the subsequent counterattack by Algerian security forces left some 37 hostages and 29 militants dead.

The involvement of two Canadians was first revealed by the Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal who said they were among those killed in the fiery military assault.

Baird, who initially demanded proof, disputed the notion Tuesday that he had challenged the Algerian government and insisted that Canadian and Algerian authorities were working co-operatively.

“We never said there weren’t Canadians, we never challenged the Algerian government, what we simply said was we didn’t have proof of Canadian involvement,” Baird said in the call from the United Arab Emirates. “I can say that our intelligence service and the RCMP worked closely with Algerian officials.”

“Canada is far from the only country that has had to deal with this challenge of radicalization. I think it goes without saying that we all want to recommit ourselves to do more to combat this real challenge that many countries in the west have.”

He specifically named the United States, the United Kingdom and Sweden as western democracies that have been forced to confront the reality of terrorist actors within their citizens’ ranks.

But he declined to say whether the Conservative government had exhausted its legislative tools or had any other ideas on how to increase law enforcement surveillance and investigative powers.

“As these have just happened obviously my colleagues and I will discuss what to do with it in the days and weeks ahead.”

CBC revealed that at least one of the two London men were on the radar of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service as early as 2007. Baird referred any other comments to the RCMP and to CSIS, saying he was not prepared to discuss it.

The RCMP again Tuesday refused comment, saying only that its investigation is continuing. It has refused to explain why it is not releasing the names of the dead.