Police say they were tipped off Wednesday morning by US authorities who provided a screen shot of a masked man threatening a terror attack, police said.
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The group said that Driver, originally from Winnipeg in Manitoba, had made a mistake “in releasing his video… before carrying out the attack”, in what serves as a potential warning to other sympathizers intent on carrying out an attack on Western soil.
“It was a race against time”, said RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mike Cabana, noting the outcome “could have been significantly more dreadful” if police had not intervened when they did.
Maria Pereira, who lives next door to Driver’s home where RCMP shot and killed Driver, said heard a loud explosion coming from her neighbour’s yard Monday afternoon. and then she called police.
Police believe Driver was planning to stage an attack within 72 hours, Cabana said.
“We can confirm a police operation took place in Strathroy yesterday, where a suspect was fatally shot by our officers”, RCMP spokeswoman Annie Delisle said in an email. (RCMP) Photos of the taxi cab in which Aaron Driver detonated an explosive during a police encounter on Wed., Aug. 11, 2016.
Assistant Commissioner Jennifer Strachan said in a statement that when Driver got in the taxi police “engaged the suspect, there was a detonation inside the taxi, and the suspect subsequently died following a confrontation with the police”.
“How quickly this was all established is actually testament to the level of collaboration that exists between law enforcement agencies and security agencies in Canada and the United States”. “His comment against the police are worrisome and therefore have a discrepancy with my beliefs”, the landlord says in court documents.
Police vehicle is parked during a raid on a home (not pictured) after they received “credible information of a potential terrorist threat” at a small community some 140 miles southwest of Toronto in Strathroy, Ontario, Canada Wednesday.
“The sure fact was, if he had gotten out of that residence before we got there, the scenario would have ended a lot differently”, said Strachan.
Driver had been under a court order not to associate with any terrorist organizations, among other restrictions. At 8:30 a.m. authorities were alerted of a masked man’s intentions to carry out a suicide bombing. While police considered him a threat, they said they had no indication he was planning an attack.
The last Tailleur heard, he said, Driver was supposed to keep the phone until the end of August and the RCMP would continue to monitor him through December.
In Strathroy, a neighbour of Driver’s said he couldn’t recall ever seeing the man around town.
Following these attacks, the Conservative government passed a bill giving the RCMP and Canada’s spy agency sweeping powers to thwart terror plots and prevent Canadian youth from flying overseas to join the Islamic State group in Syria.
June 4, 2015 – The RCMP arrests Driver for knowingly participating in the activities of a terrorist group, and find a recipe for homemade explosives on his computer.
The last time Canada experienced Islamic terrorism was in October 2014, when a gunman killed a soldier at Ottawa’s national war memorial and, later on, the Canadian Parliament, killing one soldier and wounding another.
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He was required to undergo religious counseling, stay away from social media and wear an electronic monitoring device.
