CANADIAN TERRORISM: TWO VIEWS

The Globe and Mail sees the arrests as resulting from good policing:

The ammonium nitrate was delivered. The targets were set. After two years of a stealthily assembled counterterrorism web of surveillance, wiretaps and informants, police were ready to swoop down.

The operation was so complex and tightly shrouded that everyone involved — including all the roughly 400 police officers who scooped up the 17 suspected Islamic extremists Friday and Saturday — had to sign the Official Secrets Act, pledging total discretion.

Targets of the alleged plot included political and economic symbols such as the Parliament Buildings and Peace Tower in Ottawa, along with the CN Tower and Toronto Stock Exchange in Toronto.

But long before the sensational details and spectacular arrests came the watching. Visits to certain Internet sites were observed and traced. When visitors met with some of those under surveillance, they were arrested as soon as they returned to the United States. When a group from the Toronto area visited a private recreation area in Ontario's cottage country, police appeared in force the next day and began to pore over the grounds.

And when the watching came to a head, what triggered the rapid wave of RCMP-led Toronto-area arrests was the Mounties' controlled delivery shortly before of three tonnes of ammonium nitrate in 25-kilogram bags — gardening fertilizer that, when mixed with fuel oil, can produce a lethal bomb of the type white supremacist Timothy McVeigh used in 1995 to destroy Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah building, killing 168 people.

Mr. McVeigh's truck bomb, however, was built with just one tonne of ammonium nitrate, a product sold at countless hardware and gardening stores.

The alleged conspirators' plans were evident, assistant RCMP commissioner Mike McDonell said.

The Toronto Star worries that the suspects will be railroaded:

At a news conference Saturday, a dozen of the highest-ranking police officers in the province gathered to announce that an alleged terrorist cell had been shut down before it could explode a truck bomb three times more powerful than the device used in Oklahoma City. They were circumspect about Operation O-Sage, arguing time constraints in the preparation of evidence as well as police procedure.

The anti-terrorism task force was careful about the wording of its news release, saying that the group "took steps to acquire" the three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a popular fertilizer used to make bombs. As well, they laid out selected evidence for the photographers and TV crews, showing only "sample" bags of ammonium nitrate.

Meanwhile, under massive police security which included sharpshooters on nearby roofs and tactical squad officers with submachine-guns, suspects were brought in leg irons to the provincial courthouse in Brampton. There, in Room 101, Justice of the Peace John Farnum postponed bail hearings until tomorrow morning.

For the experts contacted by the Star, these events were as much about creating an image for the public as about charging the individuals. And it's an image, they argue, that could hurt the right of the accused — 12 men and five youths — to a fair trial.

Is it just me or have these arrests got Canadians conflicted?