Homegrown Terror Cell Members Still Active

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June 06, 2006 2:12 PM

U.S. and Canadian officials say the arrest in London on October 22, 2005 of Younis Tsouli was an important aspect of the case, and emails and digitized video clips found in his possession provided valuable leads in the Canadian criminal case.

These same authorities and Canadian authorities stress that while Tsouli may have "encouraged" terror activities, he was neither the lynchpin of the Canadian terror cell or of the case itself, which began a year earlier when Canadian intelligence officials monitored email accounts used by radicalized Canadian men and youths.

ABC News has learned that Tsouli was in possession of short video clips stored in a thumb drive that showed images of the U.S. Capitol, of a Secret Service large bio hazard vehicle used in the Capitol and of fuel tank farms in the Washington area. It appears these clips may have been made by one of two suspects arrested in Atlanta in March 2006 for allegedly planning to blow up tank farms and what they erroneously thought was the site that controlled the U.S. Global Positioning satellite system.

According to law enforcement, Tsouli did communicate with the Toronto cell and discuss with members "what to attack" and "how to target."

According to law enforcement, emails and other materials may be the links that established his connection and that of the digital targeting clips in his possession to the Atlanta suspects. The first reports on Tsouli and the video clips came in Newsweek online at the time of his October 2005 arrest.

It is known that the Atlanta suspects did travel to DC. The clips appear the work of amateurs, not the work of a trained professional surveillance team. They could have been useful to some degree in targeting.

Law enforcement officials say the case, which has links in Sweden, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Canada, the UK and U.S., is very much ongoing, and both internet activities and suspects at large continue to be monitored. U.S. officials say that one of the Atlanta suspects traveled to Bangladesh and intended to go to Pakistan. He was shadowed along the way. Other suspects were also shadowed as they traveled. The goal: to identify as many members as possible before taking down the large Canada component that remains the central focus of the case and the one that U.S. and Canadian officials both say was the most potentially dangerous.