{{Authorities have arrested two men accused of planning to carry out an al Qaeda-supported attack against a Canadian passenger train on one of its busiest routes, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday.}}<\/p>\n
Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35, are charged with “receiving support from al Qaeda elements in Iran” to carry out an attack and conspiring to murder people on a VIA railway train in the greater Toronto area, Assistant Police Commissioner James Malizia said.<\/p>\n
“When I speak about supported, I mean direction and guidance,” he said.<\/p>\n
Despite the allegation of links to al Qaeda in Iran, there was no evidence to suggest the planned attacks were state-sponsored, Malizia said.<\/p>\n
Authorities said the suspects were not Canadian citizens, but declined to identify their nationality or how long they had been in Canada.<\/p>\n
There was no link between the Canadian investigation and the Boston Marathon bomb attack, an official with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told media.<\/p>\n
Canadian authorities were tight-lipped about the planned time frame of the alleged attack except to say it was in the planning stage and not imminent.<\/p>\n
“We are alleging these two individuals took steps and conducted activities to conduct a terrorist attack,” Police Capt. Jennifer Strackan told reporters.<\/p>\n
“They watched trains and railways in the greater Toronto area.”<\/p>\n
The alleged attack included a plan to derail a passenger train, she said.<\/p>\n
The Canadian media quoted “highly placed sources” as saying the suspects were under surveillance for more than a year.<\/p>\n
Media reported that the investigation was “part of a cross-border operation involving Canadian law enforcement agencies, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”<\/p>\n
Essenghaier, of Montreal, and Jaser, of Toronto, will make their first court appearance on Tuesday, police said.<\/p>\n
News of the arrests came the same day Canada’s parliament debated an anti-terrorism bill.<\/p>\n
CNN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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