Canadian police say they have stopped a planned terrorist attack in Toronto and arrested a father and son in connection to the plot. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, said on Wednesday that 62-year-old Ahmed Eldidi and 26-year-old Mostafa Eldidi were arrested on Sunday at a hotel in Richmond Hill, Toronto.
Both are facing charges of terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder.
Matt Peggs, RCMP assistant commissioner, said the men were in the “advanced stages” of planning the attack.
Both are residents of the Toronto area and Canadian citizens, police said.
Authorities became aware of the alleged plan in early July. They did not say what information led to the probe.
Police called the investigation "fast-moving" and said they were still working to determine the intended target.
The exact nature of the threat is covered by a publication ban.
Court documents say the elder Mr Eldidi faces an additional charge of aggravated assault dating back to 2015 outside of Canada.
Police do not believe there is any further risk to the public.
Mr Peggs said the police “take all threats to our national security very seriously.
“This was an imminent threat and we were able to prevent serious injuries or loss of life.”
The two accused are due to appear in court on Thursday.
Terrorist Plot in "Advanced Stages"
The RCMP says a father and son in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) who were recently arrested for alleged terrorist activities involving the Islamic State (ISIS) were planning a “violent attack in Toronto.”
Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, 62, and his 26-year-old son, Mostafa Eldidi, are both charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist group identified as the Islamic State. Ahmed Eldidi and Mostafa Eldidi were also charged with facilitating terrorist activity and conspiracy to commit murder.
The pair are facing weapons offences for being in possession of a machete and axe, and Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi was charged with aggravated assault.
Last weekend, the RCMP arrested the father and son at a hotel in Richmond Hill, alleging they were in the “advanced stages of planning a serious, violent attack in Toronto.” The intended targets of the attack are unclear as the RCMP refused to comment further, given an active publication ban.
The RCMP said the machete and axe were in their possession at the time of their arrests over the weekend. It’s unclear if additional charges will be laid.
RCMP Assistant Commissioner Matt Peggs of the Central Region of policing said that between July 1 and July 29, 2024, the two accused allegedly facilitated terrorist activity and knowingly assisted ISIS.
The RCMP also alleges that the two men were conspiring to commit terrorist activity while in Toronto, York Region and other parts of the province, including the GTA. It’s believed the father and son came to Canada on a previous date.
The RCMP said there is no active threat to the public. Ahmed Eldidi and Mostafa Eldidi will make a virtual court appearance on Thursday.
“I am very proud of the impressive team effort that made these arrests possible,” said Peggs.
“I also want to thank our law enforcement partners in the INSET group for their invaluable assistance. The RCMP Federal Police take all threats to our national security very seriously. This was an imminent threat, and we were able to prevent serious injuries or loss of life.”
ISIS Flag and Weapons in Video
The video of Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, 62, and Mostafa Eldidi, 26, showed them with an axe and machete, according to three sources who spoke on the condition of not being identified.
It may explain why police have claimed the planned attack was in the “advanced stages.” Police seized both bladed weapons during the arrests on Sunday night.
RCMP tactical officers took the pair into custody at a hotel in Richmond Hill, Ont. as they were allegedly close to conducting a mass casualty attack at an unspecified target in Toronto.
They have been charged with six ISIS-related terrorism offences. Two of the charges accuse them of possessing an axe and machete for the benefit of ISIS.
One of the counts is for an aggravated assault the father allegedly committed for ISIS outside of Canada in 2015. The charge does not specify where, and the RCMP declined to elaborate.
But two sources said the elder Eldidi had allegedly appeared in a June 2015 ISIS propaganda video in which he was shown dismembering a prisoner with a sword.
Evidence of Past Crimes
A video obtained by Global News that appears to match the one that resulted in the aggravated assault charge shows a prisoner wearing an orange jumpsuit, suspended from a pole in a desert.
A man wearing a black robe, whose face is visible in the video, then hacks at the prisoner’s limbs with a sword. It is unclear whether the victim was already dead when he was dismembered.
The video was published in June 2015 by the pro-ISIS outfit Al-Raud Media.
At a news conference on Wednesday, police provided few details on the case, saying the investigation was continuing and a publication ban was in effect.
They said there was no further threat to public safety.
The Eldidis are among more than three dozen suspected ISIS supporters who have been charged in Canada with offences related to the terrorist group, formed in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Canadian ISIS-Related Crimes
A Global News analysis of police, prosecution and court records found that Canadian authorities have charged 38 people with ISIS-related crimes since then.
Twenty-seven of those were men, including the Eldidis. Another six were women, while five were minors. Nine of the arrests have come since the start of 2023.
The charges range from passport fraud to terrorism and murder. But all had one common denominator: they were carried out for ISIS.
Of those accused, 20 have been convicted to date, while 14 are still awaiting trials. Four were found not guilty or their charges were stayed.
In addition to prosecutions in this country, several Canadians were put on trial in the United States and United Kingdom.
On July 30, Khaled Hussein of Edmonton was sentenced to five years in a British prison for his role in a terror group linked to ISIS attacks.
Abdullahi Ahmed Abdullahi, who robbed an Edmonton jewelry store to fund ISIS, was extradited to the U.S. and sentenced to 20 years.
ISIS Activity in Canada
A senior Canadian ISIS member, Mohamed Khalifa, was sentenced to life in the U.S. for producing ISIS videos showing him executing victims.
Canadian officials have not relied on prosecutions alone to deal with ISIS supporters. In some cases, suspected extremists were denied passports to prevent them from joining ISIS overseas.
Another common tactic was to ask the courts for terrorism peace bonds, which impose restrictions on suspects in the name of public safety.
Several ISIS supporters were never prosecuted because they were killed, either during air strikes in Syria and Iraq, or in Canada itself.
One of the most shocking ISIS-related crimes may be the shooting of four family members at their Mississauga, Ont., takeout restaurant, Chicken Land.
According to prosecutors, the shooting was ordered by Niqash Abbasi, who ran an ISIS fundraising operation out of a warehouse near Toronto’s Pearson airport.
When he found out that one of his employees, Naim Akl, was planning to go to the authorities, Abbasi came up with a plan to stop him: He would kill not only Akl, but his entire family.
At 7:17 p.m. on May 29, 2021, a green Honda Accord pulled up outside Chicken Land and Anand Nath got out wearing a hoodie. He went inside and started shooting.
He shot Naim Akl in the face and ear with a 9-mm handgun. When Akl fell to the floor, Nath shot him a third time.
He fired four more times, wounding Akl’s mother, father and brother before jumping into the trunk of the waiting Accord, driven by Suliman Raza.
The murder took 18 seconds.
The Chicken Land shooting was solved when a friend of the gunman went to homicide detectives, resulting in the arrest of Nath, Raza and Abbasi.
On their electronic devices, police found ISIS propaganda and messages about their support for the group and Akl’s “treachery.”
All three were convicted in June 2024.
RCMP Charges in Toronto Terror Plot
According to a news release issued on Tuesday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will be holding a news conference on Wednesday morning to share more details about the “recent arrests.”
The news conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. at the federal agency’s Newmarket detachment.
RCMP Assistant Commissioner Matt Peggs will be on hand to speak with reporters.
So far no further details have been released about the arrests.
A Toronto father and son arrested while allegedly in the “advanced stages” of planning a violent attack have been charged with multiple terrorism-related offences, the RCMP say.
Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, 62, and Mostafa Eldidi, 26, face a total of nine charges. Among them is one count each of conspiracy to commit murder for the benefit or at the direction of a terrorist group — namely ISIS, a Sunni Muslim militant organization.
RCMP Assistant Commissioner Matt Peggs announced the charges at a news conference on Wednesday.
The pair were arrested on July 28 in a hotel room in Richmond Hill, Ont., after a month-long investigation that involved multiple police services, Peggs said.
The alleged attack was going to target Toronto, RCMP Supt. James Parr said, though the exact nature of the threat falls under a publication ban. Parr said there is no ongoing danger to residents of the city.
The pair also face weapons charges for possession of an axe and a machete, which they had with them at the hotel when they were arrested, Parr said.
“As you know, they were charged with having particular weapons. In other words, we’re pretty confident how close they were to moving from simply having those tools and then moving on to actioning that threat,” Parr said when asked about what kind of attack the pair were allegedly planning.
Court documents filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice show the duo reside at the same address in Scarborough, an eastern suburb within Toronto. Parr declined to say whether anyone else lived at the address.
Both men are Canadian citizens, according to Parr, who added he didn’t know if they also held citizenship in another country.
Neither man was known to police before the investigation began in early July, Parr said. He would not say what prompted police to begin the probe.
“So the RCMP receives information in a variety of ways and that could be through the form of tipsters. It can come through other governmental agencies and partners. Once again, the way that this unfolded, I will curtail my comments at this time,” Parr told reporters.
A charge sheet also alleges Ahmad Fouad Mostafa Eldidi committed an aggravated assault for the benefit of the Islamic State in 2015 somewhere outside of Canada.
Asked about how investigators came to know about that alleged incident, Parr credited civilian and public service members of the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team with “putting together the pieces” leading to that specific charge.
The pair are currently being held in police custody, and another court appearance is scheduled for Thursday.
The Rise and Fall of ISIS
At the height of its powers in late 2014 and 2015, ISIS imposed a reign of terror over millions of people and claimed control over swaths of the combined territories of Iraq and Syria.
Its fighters repeatedly defeated both countries’ armies and carried out or inspired attacks in dozens of cities around the world.
Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared his cross-border caliphate from the pulpit of Iraq’s historic al-Nuri mosque in 2014, and vowed to rule it. Five years later, he was killed in a raid by U.S. special forces in northwest Syria.
The caliphate collapsed in Iraq, where it once had a base only a 30-minute drive from Baghdad, and in Syria after a sustained military campaign by a U.S.-led coalition.
With files from Jamie Strashin, Allie Elwell and Reuters
The Aftermath of a Threat
According to a news release issued on Tuesday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will be holding a news conference on Wednesday morning to share more details about the “recent arrests.”
The news conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. at the federal agency’s Newmarket detachment.
RCMP Assistant Commissioner Matt Peggs will be on hand to speak with reporters.
So far no further details have been released about the arrests.
The Impact of the Arrests
The arrests of Ahmed Eldidi and Mostafa Eldidi have sent shockwaves through the community. The RCMP is working to ensure the public’s safety and is urging anyone with information to come forward.
The case is a stark reminder of the ongoing threat of terrorism. The RCMP is committed to protecting Canadians from harm and will continue to investigate and prosecute those who threaten our national security.
