From Newsday:

Arrests put focus on northern border

BY JENNIFER SMITH
STAFF WRITER; This story was supplemented with wire reports.

June 6, 2006

From the debate over immigration bills to the scheduled deployment of National Guard soldiers to the Mexican border, security - or the lack thereof - at the nation's southern perimeter has dominated the headlines.

But the arrests Friday of 17 people accused of plotting terrorist attacks against Canadian targets has thrown the spotlight northward, where a force of border patrol agents one-tenth the size of their southern counterparts watch over more than 5,000 miles of land dividing Canada and the United States.

"There is a strong group of al-Qaida supporters in Canada. There's considerable activity up there," Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), said yesterday, referring to terrorist sympathizers that he said were sheltered by that country's liberal asylum policies.

"The positive side, is that the Canadian intelligence services are very, very cooperative with the United States," said King, who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Both countries beefed up security along their shared border following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Canada created a new agency to handle integrated border security and other customs functions in 2003. In the United States, millions have been spent on radiation detectors and non-invasive X-ray machines to detect contraband cargo - and there are more bodies on the ground to do so.

"Our main job is to look for terrorists," said Kevin Corsaro, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Buffalo, which went from eight to 50 officers after Sept. 11. And the number of border agents patrolling the land between Buffalo and Lake Champlain has more than tripled in size, the agency said.

Still, enforcement numbers along the country's northern edge are dwarfed by the 10,000 agents patrolling 1,900 miles of border with Mexico. That may be because the northern border, while longer, sees less official traffic - about 216,438 daily travelers on average last year, compared with 662,739 in the south, according to agency figures.

Cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments has increased since 2001, with a joint effort to crack down on cross-border crime evolving into daily dialogue between the two nations' law enforcement and intelligence agencies, said Leah Yoon, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

One development in this weekend's Canadian terrorism roundup may be a testament to that increased vigilance. Among the 17 suspects are two Somali immigrants, Mohammed Dirie, 22, and Yasim Abdi Mohamed, 24, who are already serving two-year terms in an Ontario prison for attempting to smuggle weapons and munitions across the border last August. Canadian border inspectors at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo found Mohamed had a semiautomatic handgun taped under his clothes, and Dirie had two handguns taped to his inner thighs, the Toronto Star reported. Officers also found about 200 rounds of ammunition in bags.

Yesterday, Canadian authorities investigating the alleged terrorist plot said more arrests were possible as part of a wider probe into terrorist cells in at least seven countries, including the United States. A U.S. law enforcement official said investigators are looking for connections between the 17 detained in Canada and suspected Islamic militants in custody in the United State, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Denmark, Great Britain and Sweden.

This story was supplemented with wire reports.

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.