The Daily Populous Sunday September 8th, 2024 morning edition
Authored by theglobeandmail.com and submitted by AravRAndG

U.S. federal prosecutors allege that a Pakistani citizen arrested in Quebec had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and plotted a mass shooting against Jewish people in New York City to mark the Oct. 7 anniversary of the Hamas attack in Israel.

The Department of Justice said in a statement Friday that 20-year-old Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, faces one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. He faces a possible 20-year sentence.

He had been living in Canada prior to being arrested Wednesday in Ormstown, Que., as he was close to crossing the Canada-U.S border, the statement said.

“Khan, who resided in Canada, attempted to travel from Canada to New York City, where he intended to use automatic and semi-automatic weapons to carry out a mass shooting in support of ISIS at a Jewish center in Brooklyn, New York,” U.S. prosecutors said in the statement.

According to a criminal complaint filed by a federal prosecutor in New York, Mr. Khan expressed hopes in online chats and verbal conversation with informants and undercover officers about launching an Islamic State terrorist attack in North America that would celebrate the one-year anniversary of last year’s Hamas attack in Israel.

Hamas fighters killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 200 during the attack. In the ensuing war between Hamas and Israel, more than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the territory.

“The defendant is alleged to have planned a terrorist attack in New York City around October 7th of this year with the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible,” said U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland in a statement.

The U.S. document contains unproved allegations that have not yet been tested in court.

According to the criminal complaint, Mr. Khan confided details of his plot to several people he trusted.

It alleges that Mr. Khan expressed interest in violent jihad and later discussed specific plans to use automatic and semi-automatic firearms to carry out mass shootings in New York – including at an unnamed Jewish religious centre in Brooklyn.

“Khan recognized [Oct. 7] as the one-year anniversary of the brutal terrorist attacks in Israel by Hamas,” reads the complaint.

The Department of Justice, which is now seeking the extradition of Mr. Khan from Canada, commended the “quick action of our Canadian law-enforcement partners” who took the suspect into custody. According to U.S. law enforcement, Mr. Khan attempted to reach the U.S-Canada border with others using three separate cars before he was stopped in Ormstown, about 20 kilometres from the border.

The police takedown was led by the RCMP’s federal policing wing in the small Quebec town of approximately 4,000 people located about 60 kilometres southwest of Montreal.

Thomas Murphy, 22, was at work on Wednesday when he heard a loud bang around 3 p.m.

“I thought it was a car crash at first,” he said, adding that he saw about 20 RCMP officers in tactical gear detaining at least three individuals: two men and a woman. It’s not clear who the other individuals were.

U.S. law-enforcement officials say in their court-filed criminal complaint that Mr. Khan said he hoped to cross the border with the help of smugglers.

Canada’s Public Safety Minister, Dominic LeBlanc, said in a post on X that the arrest was a result of the strong partnership between the FBI and RCMP.

“Jewish Canadians and Jewish Americans deserve to be safe in their communities,” he wrote. “We, along with our law-enforcement agencies, are working tirelessly to ensure all Canadians’ safety. Canada will never tolerate hate, violent extremism or terrorism.”

The RCMP also announced it may seek to lay charges against Mr. Khan, including trying to leave Canada for the purpose of committing an offence for a terrorist group and conspiring to violate the immigration laws of the United States.

In a statement released Friday, the RCMP said that Mr. Khan “was allegedly planning to commit a deadly attack against Jewish citizens in the United States.”

Mr. Khan is to appear before the Superior Court of Justice in Montreal on Sept. 13.

“This planned attack against Jewish people in the United States is deplorable and there is no place for such ideological and hate-motivated crimes in Canada,” RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme said in a statement

Josh Kramer, New York director of American Jewish Committee, a global advocacy organization, thanked Canadian and American law-enforcement agencies for their work “to avert a horrific terror attack on New York’s Jewish community.”

“In the face of rising antisemitism, it is imperative that all threats against the Jewish community are taken seriously,” the statement said.

The U.S. criminal complaint alleges that the conspiracy began to take shape last fall as the suspect made a variety of incriminating admissions, first on social media, and later on encrypted chats to people who were informants or undercover police.

The criminal complaint says that Mr. Khan “has repeatedly and explicitly expressed his support for ISIS and his desire to carry out terrorist attacks in support of ISIS, including on social media and in communications with two undercover law-enforcement officers.”

The court filed allegations say that in July, Mr. Khan began messaging his confidants to say that he “had been actively attempting to create ‘a real offline cell’ to carry out a ‘co-ordinated assault’ using AR-15-style assault rifles and that the plan was to “carry out mass shootings at or around Jewish religious centres and public gathering places.”

The criminal complaint says that Mr. Khan allegedly told others that “New York is perfect to target Jews” because it has the “largest Jewish population in America.” He also stands accused by the FBI of saying that “he intended to kill as many Jewish civilians as possible.”

The FBI says Mr. Khan urged others to acquire guns, ammunition and even “some good hunting [knives] so we can slit their throats.”

On July 31, Mr. Khan allegedly told an undercover officer online that “what I was thinking was if we a[r]e 6 guys splitting into 3 teams of 2 guys and launching 3 attacks simultaneously on diff[erent] locations maximizing casualty count.” and that “if we[’]re successful this is going to be one of the largest attacks ever on Jews outside of the Israeli territory in recent times.”

B’nai B’rith International CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin issued a statement that said the allegations speak “volumes about the tsunami of anti-Semitism now sweeping the globe.”

“We’re reminded, once again, that vigilance, on the part of all of us, remains the vital watchword in meeting the threats posed such vile haters,” the statement said.

In an unrelated case in late July, police in Toronto arrested father-and-son suspects whom they accused of plotting an attack in an alleged conspiracy to commit murder on behalf of the Islamic State. The older man also faces a Canadian charge alleging that, in 2015, he committed an aggravated assault in a foreign country “for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with” the Islamic State.

Mr. Khan made note of the Toronto arrests in his communications. “They foiled an ISIS attack here in toronto yesterday,” he said in an Aug. 1 message about the arrest of the two men.

He urged an undercover officer, who he believed was a co-conspirator, that they should “lay low, no social media – nothin.”

Tranquil_Neurotic on September 7th, 2024 at 12:03 UTC »

Pakistani and Turkish rabid jew phobia is a sight to behold. Don't ever visit the right wing subreddits for each country, it's pretty much calls for holocaust over there.

BobQuixote on September 7th, 2024 at 05:31 UTC »

It's nice to see some confirmation that anti-terrorism security is working, beyond the simple absence of terrorism.

AravRAndG on September 7th, 2024 at 03:08 UTC »

Submission statement: U.S. federal prosecutors allege that a Pakistani citizen arrested in Quebec had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and plotted a mass shooting against Jewish people in New York City to mark the Oct. 7 anniversary of the Hamas attack in Israel.

The Department of Justice said in a statement Friday that 20-year-old Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, faces one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. He faces a possible 20-year sentence.

He had been living in Canada prior to being arrested Wednesday in Ormstown, Que., as he was close to crossing the Canada-U.S border, the statement said. Khan, who resided in Canada, attempted to travel from Canada to New York City, where he intended to use automatic and semi-automatic weapons to carry out a mass shooting in support of ISIS at a Jewish center in Brooklyn, New York,” U.S. prosecutors said in the statement.

According to a criminal complaint filed by a federal prosecutor in New York, Mr. Khan expressed hopes in online chats and verbal conversation with informants and undercover officers about launching an Islamic State terrorist attack in North America that would celebrate the one-year anniversary of last year’s Hamas attack in Israel.

Hamas fighters killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 200 during the attack. In the ensuing war between Hamas and Israel, more than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the territory.

“The defendant is alleged to have planned a terrorist attack in New York City around October 7th of this year with the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible,” said U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland in a statement.

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