Canadian police likely prevented an Islamic State terror attack in Toronto by shooting dead a would-be suicide bomber determined to cause mass casualties.
Aaron Driver, 24, a Canadian convert to Islam and a strong supporter of the Islamic State (ISIS) terror organization, was shot dead by police Wednesday afternoon in the small municipality of Strathroy, in Western Ontario, before he had the chance to set off a second, and likely more deadly, explosion.
Driver, who began calling himself by the name “Harun,” detonated a bomb that wounded a taxi driver. The assailant had become infatuated with ISIS and was suspected of planning to carry out a suicide mission.
He had been using social media to promote terrorist propaganda before being banned by the court from using a computer in accordance with a peace bond.
Reports indicate that Driver was determined to overcome any court restrictions. Police therefore responded on Wednesday to “credible information of a potential terrorist threat” in a major Canadian city.
CityNews reported that the Toronto Transit Commission metropolitan busing system and the GO Transit intercity train service were warned about a possible threat before the explosion took place in Strathroy.
In an interview with The National Post, Wayne Driver, the father, confirmed that his son was an ISIS supporter and that he was killed by police.
“Yes, it was Aaron my son who was shot and killed earlier today,” he said on Thursday. “Our worst nightmare has come true. As sad and shocked as I am, it doesn’t surprise me that it has come to this. Aaron was a good kid who went down a dark path and couldn’t find the light again.”
He offered no words of condemnation regarding the police action, instead acknowledging that “they did what they had to do. He would not surrender.”
He was also perplexed as to how his son had managed to compile materials for a bomb while being the subject of a terrorism peace bond.
By: World Israel News Staff
(With files from The National Post)