Residents in the rural area of Washago, Ontario, had a feeling something wasn’t right about the Muslims showing up with bags of heavy gear and camouflage clothing, and the bursts of automatic gunfire in the night.

WASHAGO, Ont. — It was the bursts of automatic gunfire that made the farmer in this tiny central Ontario tourist community think something was amiss as he fed his animals after dark.

“I feed my animals at night,” the farmer said yesterday. “So I’d be outside late at night and I’d hear the gunfire from over there, automatic gunfire. I’d hear rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat. I just knew there was something wrong about them. It was obvious they were doing some kind of military training.”

The sounds of war were coming from what police now describe as a terrorist training camp on an isolated property just outside Washago, about 150 kilometres north of Toronto. Late last year, residents began noticing groups of as many as a dozen men, dressed in camouflage clothing, drifting into town. The strangers drove up from Toronto in three or four vehicles at a time. They would converge at the property, staying for a week at a time, sometimes longer.

“They were out there almost every other week,” said one neighbour, who, like all of the local residents willing to speak with the National Post yesterday, was too frightened to give his name. “I would see, like, eight of them at a time usually, sometimes as many as a dozen. They were all wearing camouflage gear and carrying big bags of equipment ... coming and going at all times of the day or night.” ...

“You weren’t going to tell me these guys were cottagers or even hunters for goodness’ sake,” said one woman who lived down a quiet country lane from the group’s makeshift training camp. “It was kind of hard to miss them,” she added.