Canadian RCMP Disrupt Al-Qaeda Terror Plot

RCMP Confirm Al-Qaeda Supported Terrorist Attack Plot on New York - Toronto Passenger Train .The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested and charged two men with plotting an "al Qaeda-supported" terror attack to derail a passenger train inside Canada.

SkyNews. Canadian police say they have foiled an al Qaeda-backed "terrorist plot" to attack a passenger train on a railway line between New York and Toronto.
Two people have been arrested and charged for conspiring to carry out the attack and murder people in association with a terrorist group, police revealed at a news conference in Toronto.
The suspects - Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35 - had been under surveillance since August 2012.
They were allegedly planning to target a Via Rail passenger train in the Toronto area, and are alleged to have received "direction and guidance" from al Qaeda elements in Iran.
Police said there was "no indication that these attacks were state-sponsored" and declined to say where the arrested men were from, but confirmed they were not Canadian citizens.
Canadian authorities, the FBI and US Homeland Security police and agents have been involved in a year-long cross-border operation that led to the arrests in Toronto and Montreal.
Assistant Commissioner James Maliza, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said: "Had this plot been carried out it would have resulted in innocent people being killed, or seriously injured."
Colleague Chief Superintendent Jennifer Strachan added: "We are alleging that these two individuals took steps and conducted activities to initiate a terrorist attack.
"They watched trains and railways in the Greater Toronto area."
She added: "It was definitely in the planning stage but not imminent."
Sky's US correspondent Amanda Walker said: "They are really hailing this as a successful operation - something particularly in the current climate - that they have managed to prevent.
"It does seem they have treated this as a very serious and major threat which was certainly well-on in the planning, it seems.
"But not far enough for the public or railway staff to be in any immediate danger.
"So obviously they had a difficult act here to actually balance the timing of when they made these arrests - getting enough intelligence, enough information, but not taking that up to the point when the public would have been in real danger."
The news comes one week after twin bombings at the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded 180 - and as Canada's parliament debates a proposal to beef up anti-terror measures.
A US Justice Department official in Washington said there was no connection between the thwarted terrorist plot and last Monday's attacks in Boston.