Less than two years before the 9/11 attacks, an Algerian named Ahmed Ressam tried to cross from Canada into the United States to bomb the Los Angeles Airport.
“The fire is on. And it’s coming.”
With those cryptic words, a plot to unleash a devastating terror attack on the United States was set in motion by a Canadian-based jihadist group.
At that moment, in December 1999, a short, slender Algerian named Ahmed Ressam was the most dangerous man on the continent: The trunk of his rented Chrysler sedan was packed with high explosives and powdered fertilizer. He was headed for a ferry terminal that would take him from Victoria to Washington State.
His plan was to detonate a massive explosion inside the Los Angeles International Airport as passengers travelled to welcome the new millennium.
The terror attack that would define the early 21st century, 9/11, was less than two years away.
Ressam, who never made it past U.S. customs, would end up providing U.S. officials with an early warning of the destruction to come – it went largely unheeded – while highlighting embarrassing security flaws in Canada.
The case would reverberate for years inside the Canadian security establishment, and contribute to the government’s overreaction to the 9/11 terror attacks. Six Canadian citizens, including Ottawa’s Maher Arar and Abdullah Almalki, would be tortured in other countries as Canadian security agents scrambled to identify potential threats – that is, more Ressams.
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Source: Ottawa Citizen.