Interdict: Restricting the Movement of Threats

• Author: Craig Forcese; Kent Roach
• Pages: 175-200

175

CHAPTER SIX

Interdict: Restricting the Movement

of Threats

I. INTRODUCTION

Algerian Ahmed Ressam came to Canada in  on a crude false passport.

Border ocials detected the forgery, and Ressam applied for refugee status.

He was released pending adjudication of his refugee claim and took up resi-

dence in Montreal, living on welfare payments and pett y crime. In May ,

the Immigration and Refu gee Board of Canada denied Ressam’s refugee claim

after he had failed to appear for a critical hearing. In June , he was con-

victed of shoplifting and ordered to leave Canada. He did not comply, and

he was again arrested for theft — in this case pickpocketing — in October

 and eventually convicted. Again, he remained in Canada. He was not

deported reportedly because of the prospect of his ma ltreatment in his native

Algeria. But he was watched by CSIS.

While in Montreal, Ressa m associated with aliates of al-Q aida, but CSIS

did not regard his activities as threatening Canadian security. During this

period, however, Ressam did manage to acquire a blan k baptismal certicate

stolen from the Catholic church. Assuming a new identity, he acquired a real

Canadian passport in March . Using this document, Ressam left Can-

ada, and CSIS lost all track of him.

Ressam travelled to Afghanistan, where he attended al-Qaida terrorist

camps. ere, he acquired explosives training. He also plotted with other

Algerians to att ack a US airport or consulate. Returning to Canad a under his

false identity with precursor chemicals for bombs hidden in toiletry bottles,

a notebook with bomb-making instructions, and a large quantity of cash, he

FALSE SECURITY

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then sought weapons, chemicals, and phony papers. Af ter his co-conspirators

proved unable to obtain travel documents to Canada, Ressam went ahead

with his plans alone, selecting L os Angeles International airport as his t arget.

After a week in Vancouver assembling explosive components with a close

friend, he packed the explosives in a rental car and drove onto the ferry be-

tween Victoria and Port Angeles, Washington. He and a new United States–

based confederate had planned to bomb the airport on  January . But,

at the border crossing, a US customs agent noticed Ressam’s evident nerv-

ousness. Subjected to a pat-down search, Ressam panicked and attempted to

ee. US authorities inspected the rental car a nd discovered the bomb materi-

al. Ressam was arrested and convicted. He is now known to history as the

“millennium bomber.”

Ressam’s plot was halted. But it was alert border ocials that stopped

him, not surveillance, intercepts, or intellig ence sharing. ese ocial s inter-

dicted what could have been a devastating terrorist attack. Had they not,

there is every chance that Ressam would have succeeded. Enhanced tools

to physically foil plots and attacks are, therefore, a logical priority in any

anti-terror strategy.

Stopping terrorist violence before it occurs is called “deny” in the Can-

adian government’s  counter-terrorism strategy. For the government,

“deny” “involves mitigating vulnerabilities and aggressively intervening in

terrorist planning, including prosecuting individuals involved in terrorist re-

lated criminal activities, and making Canada and Canadian interests a more

dicult target for would-be terrorists.” Put another way, “deny” includes

everything from hardening infrastructure to trials.

We do not nd this general and vast concept of “deny” to be a tremen-

dously useful analytical tool. It is too broad and ambiguous to t into our

analytical threat response escalator, explained in Chapter . And so in the

next ve chapters we subdivide “deny” into dierent categories, each mark-

ing a more assertive step on the escalator:

• Interdict: measures that restrict movement

• Restrain: measu res that restrict liberty short of criminal inca rceration

• Interrupt: measures that are used to stop feared terrorist attacks or

threats when other measures are unavailable

• Prosecute: criminal trial and incarceration

• Delete: prosecution and deletion of extremist speech

is chapter covers “interdict,” which involves inhibiting the movement

of suspected terrorists, either directly or indirectly. Some of these tools reach

Canadians while others are available only in relation to foreigners within

Canada. In this chapter, we focus rst on those tactics that may be directed