Canada cops foil 'advanced terror plot' on FBI's tip off
A Canadian man who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in a video was shot dead in a taxi after setting off an explosive device, police said yesterday.
Aaron Driver, 24, was killed on Wednesday after a tip to Canadian authorities from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who had intercepted the video, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told a press conference.
RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mike Cabana said that early Wednesday, they had received information from the FBI, including "a martyr video that had been prepared by an individual who at that time was unknown to us but who was clearly in the final stages of preparing an attack using homemade bombs."
Based on the information received, police believed an attack was possible "within the following 72 hours" in an "urban center," Cabana said.
Police and counterterrorism experts quickly identified the man in the video as Driver.
They intercepted Driver in Strathroy, Ontario, about 220 kilometers southwest of Toronto, outside the home where he lived with his sister, at about 4:30 pm local time Wednesday.
He had just gotten into the back seat of a taxi that had just arrived.
When police approached, Driver detonated an explosive device in the back seat of the cab, causing minor injuries to the driver, before he was shot dead by officers, authorities said.
Driver had been arrested in June 2015 and released under court supervision after police received complaints of extremist posts on social media. He was ordered to undergo counseling from a religious leader, wear an electronic monitoring bracelet and stay off the internet, but was not on surveillance, police said.
Those restrictions were gradually loosened and were scheduled to expire this month.
Meanwhile, Germany yesterday unveiled tough new anti-terror measures after two attacks claimed by the Islamic State group, including a controversial proposal to strip jihadist fighters of their German nationality.
Deportations of convicted criminal migrants will also be sped up while police resources are to be greatly boosted under the security package drawn up by Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere.
Around 820 people have left Germany to fight alongside jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, according to estimates by German secret services. With about one in three fighters having since returned to Germany, fears are running high of the threat they may pose on European soil.
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