Acting on a tip-off from the American FBI, Canadian police confronted 24-year-old Aaron Driver as he travelled in the back seat of a taxi in Strathroy, Ontario, on Wednesday afternoon.
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Canadian authorities say they intercepted a would-be bomber just in time to stop a terrorist attack.
According to the SITE service, which monitors extremist websites and social media in multiple languages, the agency, known as Amaq, said: “the executor of the attack targeting police in Canada was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target coalition countries”. He had also spoken out to encourage attacks against the Canadian police and military.
The RCMP said they intercepted driver in Strathroy, Ontario, about 220 kilometers (135 miles) southwest of Toronto, outside the home where he lived with his sister, at about 4:30 pm local time Wednesday.
“He even was a bit critical of some of the violence we see coming from the Islamic State, some of their propaganda, anxious that it would attract the wrong kind of people to the movement”, Woods said.
“It was a race against time”, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mike Cabana said, adding that the outcome “could have been significantly more dreadful” had police not intervened in time. “It was by skin of their teeth situation, we could be looking at a very different scenario today if that hadn’t happened.” said security expert David Hyde. The RCMP identified the man in the video as Driver.
Meanwhile, the cab driver is at home with injuries, CBC News reported. Brad Ross, spokesman for the Toronto Transit Commission, said the agency was made aware of a terror threat investigation early the previous day, but noted that it had no specifics attached.
Woods said when he interviewed Driver, he found him to be polite, and not necessarily a “radicalized” individual.
Brad Ross said that as a precaution a “vigilance notice” was issued to all staff encouraging them to say something if they saw something of concern. Driver, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS in a video, was shot dead in a taxi after setting off an explosive device, police said Thursday.
Earlier this year, Driver was court-ordered to not associate himself with any terrorist organizations including the Islamic State.
The federal Liberal government has committed upwards of $500 million towards various police, security and border control measures, as well as a counter-radicalization program ramping up this summer, said Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale.
He stressed that law enforcement and intelligence officials are always taking “appropriate steps to keep Canadians safe” and that the national terrorism threat level for Canada remains at “medium”, where it has stood since the fall of 2014.
Amarnath Amarasingam, a post-doctoral fellow at Dalhousie University who studies radicalization and terrorism, maintained in 2015 that Driver posted for several months on social media about disliking Canada and about a desire to move overseas.
Mounties applied for the peace bond, which can impose limits on Driver’s activities, alleging in provincial court documents that investigators believed he might help with terrorist group activities.
Chams and Driver spoke frequently through Facebook but lost contact before Driver’s first appearance in the news in 2015.
He was banned from using the Internet, communicating with any known ISIS supporter or member and forced to wear a Global Positioning System tracker.
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His bail conditions drew criticism from the Manitoba Association of Rights and Liberties.
