A group of Canadian militants is training for jihad at an al Qaeda facility in Pakistan, according to a report released by a Hong Kong-based news organization.
An article posted on the Asia Times Online website over the weekend cites "well-placed Taliban sources" as saying that Canadian militants are among those being trained in an al Qaeda camp near the border of Pakistan.
The reports said the intention is to prepare Western extremists for an attack on Canadian soil.
Assistant RCMP commissioner Gilles Michaud told The Canadian Press that the report was being assessed for its "credibility and reliability." Michaud said the RCMP would take appropriate action according to the results of the assessment.
According to the article, as many as 12 Canadians travelled to Afghanistan in February 2010. After joining the Egyptian militant organization Jihad al-Islami, they were moved to a training camp in North Waziristan in November.
The Canadians are reportedly receiving special courses in weaponry, explosives and how to connect to smuggling networks in North America.
These militants will then return home to execute al Qaeda's plan of targeting big cities in Canada, a source told Asia Times Online.
Americans, Britons and Germans are also reportedly training at the camp for missions in other Western nations.
Syed Saleem Sahzad, the Pakistan bureau chief for Asia Times Online, co-wrote the article and said his information came from credible sources. He said the exact nature of the training is still a mystery.
"We have very limited knowledge about their backgrounds or the exact nature of their training," Sahzad told CTV News Channel on Saturday.
"We have the details that were commented in our story and that is all."
The article also provides the names of some of the Canadian trainees, including a "Leman Langlois" and a "James Richards," among others. The Asia Times Online article says the names provided by sources could not be independently identified.
The Globe and Mail reported that no Canadians with the provided names are known to be missing or being sought by police.
Security analyst John Thompson said al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have spent the last several years recruiting Westerners who can be trained and sent to their home countries, where they can blend in while they lay the groundwork for an attack.
According to Thompson, experts most fear an attack such as the co-ordinated series of assaults in Mumbai, India that killed 164 people and wounded hundreds more.
"We saw this in Europe just before Christmas," Thompson told CTV News Channel. "There were the reports from Germany, from Britain and from Belgium that various homegrowns had gone over to training camps to come back, try and acquire arms somewhere and plan a Mumbai-style attack, where you're shooting hundreds of people in a shopping centre or in a highrise building."
With files from The Canadian Press
