Canada's Globe and Mail has a fascinating account of a home-grown terrorist who dreamed of waging massive attacks on Canadian military and industrial targets but settled for tossing Molotov cocktails at a Montreal-area Jewish school and placing a small propane bomb outside a Jewish center.

Omar Bulphred and an accomplice admit the attacks on the Jewish targets in respective guilty pleas. Bulphred was given a 7-year prison sentence Thursday. Police had been watching him for a while, after some of their sloppy ventures left a trail of clues behind, but Bulphred was able to attack the school despite being under frequent surveillance. An undercover officer posing as an anti-capitalist activist befriended the accomplice.

Police were on Bulphred's trail already, reporter Tu Thanh Ha's story details. Bulphred is described as "a small-time hoodlum with a big chip on his shoulders." He researched targets and bomb-making on the Internet. After at least two small attacks, the story details, notes were left at the scene urging conversion to Islam and "demanding the release of 17 Muslim terror suspects arrested earlier that year in Toronto."

His motivations are unclear. After being jailed in 2004, police found a note in his jail cell ranting against Jews and Americans.

Before his most recent arrest, they also heard the men discuss kidnapping and killing a random gay man.

Police arrested Bulphred and his accomplice after they scouted and shot videotape of an army base near his apartment. At home later, Bulphred was heard on a police bug saying "Take your knife and cut the throat of each Christian around you. No pity."

Police arrested the men two days later. As an officer explained: "It was getting too dangerous, considering the last conversation. We couldn't afford to wait."