Toronto Letter Bomber and Home Bunker

(Toronto, Ontario) There has been scant exposure of this story while it appears to be at the scratch-the-surface stage. An investigation into a series of letter bombs in the Toronto area has led to the arrest of 37-year-old Adel Mohamed Arnaout, a Lebanese immigrant. I'll make a wild stab and guess that he's a Muslim.

Arnaout is charged with counts of attempted murder, counts of intending to cause an explosion, a count of criminal harassment and a count of possession of explosive material.

Police, who have one man under arrest, are investigating the manufacture of at least six explosive devices -- three sent to unwitting recipients here and in Guelph during the past several weeks, and three found in the trunk of a rental car stopped Thursday night at an Esso station at Overlea Blvd. and Thorncliffe Park Dr. in Don Mills.

"We don't have a motive at this point," Toronto police Const. Wendy Drummond said. "We do know that the three victims -- the two in Toronto and the one in Guelph -- were not chosen at random."

According to Deputy Toronto Police Chief Tony Warr, the three bombs in Arnaout's rental car were each "about 14-18 inches long." Disposal came by detonation at the waterfront.

As news helicopters buzzed overhead, a 17-car police convoy crept slowly down the normally bustling Don Valley Parkway and under the Gardiner Expressway to a deserted spit of land on the Lake Ontario waterfront, carefully towing a trailer containing the three explosive devices seized earlier from a rental car.

Bridges over the busy parkway were sealed off and pedestrians and other vehicles kept hundreds of metres away until the bombs could be carefully deposited on an isolated peninsula jutting into Lake Ontario and blown up in a controlled explosion that could be heard kilometres away.

Sources say the letter bomb investigation began in June and three targets were identified. No information has been provided regarding the three intended victims other than their names. However, Chief Warr said that Arnaout had been under surveillance for at least a day prior to his arrest, and

"There's a pattern in his logic. They weren't just random (victims) picked out of a phone book," he said. "I can't get into the details of why they're connected, (but) we're just trying to emphasize the fact this is not an ideological or a political type of attack. These were more personal attacks."

Interestingly, Arnaout lived in a house in a quiet neighborhood that had been modified with steel gates, double steel doors with tiny mesh peepholes and illegal brick extensions to the front. Called the "Bombay Bunker," the red bungalow "looked like a fortress" according to neighbors. Reportedly, as many as 30 people called it home.

Contrary to Chief Warr's assertions, I find it difficult to believe that Arnaout would have had personal problems with anyone other than the 29 people he lived with. He likely had more than plenty of reasons to be pissed off at home. Somebody had to use his towel or didn't put the top on the toothpaste or left the sink dirty. Going outside his house for personal problems wasn't really necessary and Arnaout probably didn't have the time. I suggest the letter bombs were motivated by something other than personal beefs.

Posted by: Mike Pechar at 03:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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