At least 17 terror suspects held in Toronto
'Pakistan Times' Foreign Desk

TORONTO, Canada: Seventeen Canadian residents were in custody Saturday on terrorism-related charges, including plots to use explosives in attacks on Canadian soil, authorities said.

Officials showed evidence of bomb making materials, a computer hard drive, camouflage uniforms and what appears to be a door with bullet holes in it at a news conference Saturday morning.

McDonell said that is three times the amount used to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

McDonell said the suspects were either Canadian citizens or residents of Canada and had trained together.

The Toronto Star reported Saturday that Canadian youths in their teens and 20s, upset at the treatment of Muslims worldwide, were among those arrested.

Melisa Leclerc, a spokeswoman for the federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, had no comment on the arrests.

The Canadian anti-terrorism law was passed swiftly following the Sept. 11 assaults, particularly after Osama bin-Laden‘s named Canada one of five so-called Christian nations that should be targeted for acts of terror.

The others, reaffirmed in 2004 by his al-Qaida network, were the United States, Britain, Spain and Australian, all of which have been victims of terrorist attacks.

Though many view Canada as an unassuming neutral nation that has skirted terrorist attacks, it has suffered its share of aggression, including the 1985 Air India bombing, in which 329 people were killed, most of them Canadian citizens.●