Canada terror suspects may have had US contacts

WASHINGTON, June 3 (Reuters) Some members of a group of Canadians arrested on terror-related offenses may have been in contact with two US suspects now in custody who were based in Georgia, the FBI said today.

''There is preliminary indication that some of the Canadian subjects may have had limited contact with the two people recently arrested from Georgia,'' said FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in an e-mail.

Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, of Atlanta, Georgia, was arrested March 23 after a grand jury returned an indictment charging him with material support of terrorism. He has pleaded innocent and has not yet come to trial.

Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, 19, left Georgia after Ahmed's indictment but was later taken into custody in Bangladesh and returned to the United States, where he was charged in New York's federal court with lying to federal officials in an ongoing terrorism investigation.

Sadequee and Ahmed traveled to Canada on March 13, 2005, to meet with Islamic extremists, according to a US Justice Department statement.

The two ''stayed with an individual with whom they were conspiring concerning travel to terrorist camps, and met with three subjects of an FBI international terrorism investigation and discussed strategic locations in the United States suitable for a possible terrorist strike,'' the statement said, citing the complaint against Sadequee.

US Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said on Sunday there were no plans to change the US security posture following Sunday's arrests in Canada.

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