Canada thwarts "al Qaeda-supported" passenger train plot

Canadian police said on Monday they had arrested and charged two men with plotting to derail a Toronto-area passenger train in an operation they say was backed by al Qaeda elements in Iran.

"Had this plot been carried out, it would have resulted in innocent people being killed or seriously injured," Royal Canadian Mounted Police official James Malizia told reporters.

The RCMP said it had arrested Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto in connection with the plot, which authorities said was not linked to last week's Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three and injured more than 200 people last week.

Neither is a Canadian citizen, and police did not reveal their nationalities. Two sources following the investigation said one of the two was Tunisian.

Canada's spy agency has long expressed concern about the possibility that disgruntled and radicalized Canadians could attack targets at home and abroad.

Police gave little detail about the alleged plotters, but said a tip from the Muslim community had helped their year-long investigation.
Esseghaier has been a doctoral student at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique near Montreal since 2010 and was about midway through his degree, the school said.
"He is doing a PhD in the field of energy and materials sciences," Julie Martineau, the school's director of communications, told Reuters.
A bail hearing for the two will take place in Toronto on Tuesday morning.
Malizia said there was no indication that the planned attacks, which police described as the first known al Qaeda- backed plot on Canadian soil, were state-sponsored.
U.S. officials said the attack would have targeted a rail line between New York and Toronto, a route that travels along the Hudson Valley into New York wine country and enters Canada near Niagara Falls.

Canadian police said only that the plot involved a VIA train route in the Toronto area. VIA is Canada's equivalent of Amtrak and operates passenger rail services on track owned primarily by Canadian National Railway Co.

New York Police chief spokesman Paul Browne told Reuters that the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly had been kept informed of the investigation from "early on."

Website: http://news.yahoo.com/canada-thwarts-al-qaeda-supported-passenger-train-plot-003741856.html