Canadian police raided a hotel room this week to arrest a father and son who were hours away from carrying out a deadly attack.
The duo went so far as to record a video of themselves brandishing their weapons in front of an ISIS flag as they explained their planned actions.
The family members were identified as Canadian citizens Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, 62, and Mostafa Eldidi, 26, who were allegedly armed with an axe and a machete in the video. They were arrested on July 25.
Police say they were targeting an unspecified location in Toronto. The hotel where they were arrested is just a 30-minute drive from downtown.
They each face six ISIS-related terrorism charges, including possession of weapons for the benefit of the Sunni terrorist organization.
This screenshot from a surveillance camera shows heavily armed Canadian police raiding the home shared by the two suspects in a quiet Toronto suburb.
Neighbours were shocked to learn of the couple’s involvement in terrorism and woke to the sound of stun grenades exploding in the early hours of Sunday.
Earlier this week, Canadian citizen Khalid Hussein, 29, was found guilty in England of membership in the terrorist group Al-Muhajiroun and sentenced to five years in prison. He was tried alongside hate preacher Anjem Choudary, who was sentenced to 29 years in prison.
Ahmed is also charged with aggravated assault stemming from an ISIS video he is accused of appearing in that was reportedly filmed in a different country in 2015. Global News.
The network reports that the decade-old video shows Ahmed, dressed in a black robe with his face visible, attacking an ISIS prisoner wearing an orange jumpsuit with a sword while the victim was suspended from a pole.
The video was filmed in a desert and distributed by one of ISIS’s media arms, Al-Raud Media.
The connection between Ahmed and that video was made through the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Integrated National Security Team.
Meanwhile, officials in Canada have said there is no outstanding threat as a result of Ahmed and Mostafa’s intended actions, indicating that investigators do not believe they were part of a larger cell.
Officials did not say whether the duo were working with other ISIS operatives in different countries.
Despite being decimated in their former strongholds in Iraq and Syria, officials have long maintained that ISIS activists remain active around the world.
Earlier this week, Canadian citizen Khaled Hussein was sentenced to five years in prison in the UK for his membership in Al-Muhajiroun, a terrorist group.
“As you know, they were charged with possessing certain weapons. In other words, we’re pretty confident how close they came from simply having those tools to actually dealing with that threat,” RCMP Superintendent James Parr said.
The father and son lived together in the suburb of Scarborough, east of Toronto.
The house was also raided on Sunday night, according to reports. The Toronto Star. Neighbours told the paper they were woken by a sound resembling a ‘car crash’ believed to have been a stun grenade.
Surveillance video from the area showed officers with assault rifles raiding the home. An ambulance later arrived to take a woman out of the house.
“I don’t feel safe at all knowing that someone in my backyard was (arrested for terrorism),” one neighbor told The Star, adding that they had not seen the family much this year.
Another neighbor shared that sentiment.
“I feel uneasy, very disappointed that this has happened… This street is very quiet, very secluded. Any strange vehicle passing through here we know about it,” said Hema Ramperasad.
Neighbors said they had previously complained to the family about the number of cameras installed in their backyard that appeared to be focused on surrounding homes.
The suspects were not known to police before this incident. Authorities have not said what prompted an investigation into them.
Nearly 40 ISIS members have been charged with various crimes in Canada since the group established itself in the border areas between Syria and Iraq in 2014. About 20 of them have been convicted and another 14 are awaiting trial.
Ahmed and Mostafa will make their first court appearance on Thursday.
A decade after the Islamic State militant group declared its caliphate across large parts of Iraq and Syria, the extremists no longer control any territory, have lost many prominent leaders and are mostly out of the global news headlines.
Still, the group continues to recruit members and claim responsibility for deadly attacks around the world, including deadly operations in Iran and Russia earlier this year that left dozens dead.
Its sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq are still carrying out attacks against government forces in both countries, as well as against US-backed Syrian fighters, at a time when the Iraqi government is negotiating with Washington over a possible withdrawal of US troops.
The group that once attracted tens of thousands of fighters and supporters from around the world to Syria and Iraq, and at its peak ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom, was known for its brutality.
He beheaded civilians, massacred 1,700 captured Iraqi soldiers in a short period of time and enslaved and raped thousands of women from the Yazidi community, one of Iraq’s oldest religious minorities.
“Daesh remains a threat to international security,” US Army Maj. Gen. JB Vowell, commanding general of Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, said earlier this month.
“We maintain our intensity and determination to combat and destroy any remnants of groups that share Daesh’s ideology,” he added.