Toronto 18 trial hears of 'jihadi flavour' paintball

This past week, a trial in Brampton Ontario was told of militant training camp participants playing paintball in a "jihadi way". They also heard that an alleged terror cell videotaped its activities in hopes of getting more information from jihadi leaders across the world. Three people from the Toronto 18 Group are on trial for terrorism. Fahim Ahmad is their accused leader who wanted to attack Parliament, nuclear plants, and electrical grids. Mubin Shaikh, being the first witness, said that Fahim had a training camp in Washington DC in December, 2005 to which the other two accused, Asad Ansari and Steven Chand attended. They did target practice, used obstacle courses and played paintball. The whole thing was a substitute for combat. Zakaria Amara decided to videotape the whole training camp thing to send over to jihadi leaders who could send their best people suited for a higher level camp in spring. A total of 14 people attended the camp. The men are pleading against all charges and the trial is continuing.

In a scenario like this I feel that maybe the court and all the accusers may be taking this too seriously. I doubt that this small group of 18 men had any motives to blow up the Parliament. Nobody in there right minds would be so naiive of themselves to think they could pull of such a stunt. Additionally calling their paintball games substitutes for combat with Muslims without any evidence other than possible racial profiling is wrong. Another point is if they are completely guilty they should realize that pleading against charges is not smart because they will be figured out.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/04/13/toronto-eighteen.html