Canadian police kill 'terror suspect' in Ontario armed swoop

Armed officers descended on the town of Strathroy, Ontario, on Wednesday afternoon. Police cited in news reports said the operation centred on Aaron Driver, a man in his mid-20s who had sympathised with the Islamic State group on social media and was under a court order not to associate with any terrorist group.

Senior police said late on Wednesday that the suspect had allegedly planned to carry out a suicide bombing mission in a public area

Canadian police kill 'terror suspect' in Ontario armed swoop

From The Guardian today, RCMP descended on a small town in Ontario whereupon the suspect detonated a device wounding himself & another. Not sure why the words "terror suspect" are in colons since the article makes it quite clear the guy was indeed a future suicide bomber, however, what I am most curious about is it is said that the suspect Aaron Driver aka Hamid Ahbdurahman had a court order against him which stated he was ordered to

stay away from social media and computers and not have contact with Islamic State or similar groups

...how exactly could this order be enforced? With internet cafes, mobile internet and fake facebook profiles I fail to see how such an order could work for more than just say 1 or 2 suspects. Surely such an order would involve 24/7 surveillance, monitoring of his internet, numerous man hours and officers. Whilst this action was clearly successful in this case, if this is going to be the norm for all "suspects" of which there could be thousands, it seems impossible to police. What's more it does seem from recent events and stories emerging that many terrorist suspects are turning out to be homegrown muslim converts making detection 100% harder.

I saw the story this morning, dude had issues and was court ordered to not associate with anything extremist, one less idiot to deal with.

Sad that he injured another person.

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

I just want to add this vid report on a terrorist cell that the RCMP created and got caught in a court ruling . I have wondered if maybe the Parliment shooter wasn't a set up as well and will question all reports of terrorist in Canada .

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

I suppose he was a "terrorist suspect" as he had yet to commit any terrorist act. Crazy news. Nowadays a little Twitter, a little Islam, and a little ISIS propaganda can make anyone radicalized.

The sad future of terrorism: lone wolf operators with minimal support and training either committing ill-conceived and de facto suicide attacks or just getting busted/shot by law enforcement before they can.

Pity it's so hard to catch and so many civilians will be hurt in the process. And remember those civil rights we had once? Good times, good times.

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

I just want to add this vid report on a terrorist cell that the RCMP created and got caught in a court ruling . I have wondered if maybe the Parliment shooter wasn't a set up as well and will question all reports of terrorist in Canada .

I'm glad you posted this. Even if there is no direct link this story about Aaron Driver hasn't been sitting well with me all day. The official stories keep changing depending on where you are reading and the information on the incident itself trickled out slowly yet the media had his full life story written out for review in no time flat. We will never know if there is any truth to the "terrorist plot" they claim he had. It smells fishy to me.

Discrepancies, and omissions all over this story. I dare not type how I really feel about it.

In June 2015, Driver was first picked up in Winnipeg. Published reports at the time suggested Driver posted messages on social media that praised terrorist activities, including the attack on Parliament Hill in October 2014 by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. Amarnath Amarasingam, a post-doctoral fellow at Dalhousie University who studies radicalization and terrorism, maintained in 2015 that Driver posted for several months on social media about disliking Canada and about a desire to move overseas. Mounties applied for a peace bond that could impose limits on Driver's activities, alleging in provincial court documents that investigators believed he might help with terrorist group activities. When Driver, who was in his mid-20s, was released later that month, he was ordered to comply with 18 different conditions, including wearing a GPS tracking device. At the time, the bail conditions drew criticism from the Manitoba Association of Rights and Liberties. "This is a person — a Canadian citizen — who has not been charged with a crime ... and yet he's going to be subject to 24-7 GPS monitoring," said association president Corey Shefman. "This is Canada and a judge has just told this man that he must receive counseling from a religious leader. That, frankly, is outrageous." The office of former Tory public safety minister Steven Blaney defended the move, saying the government must combat terrorism.

SOURCE

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation tipped off the RCMP about a person who was potentially planning a terrorist attack in Canada, says Reuters, which led the RCMP to a small Ontario town where they ended up killing a known ISIS sympathizer. After receiving the tip Wednesday morning, police responded to what they called "a potential terrorist threat" in Strathroy. Aaron Driver, 24, who had been under a peace bond for openly supporting ISIS on social media, was killed by police. RCMP told the man's family that Driver was shot after he detonated a device that wounded himself and one other person. The identity of the other person isn't clear. Police told Driver's family they had to shoot him because he had another device and planned to detonate it.

SOURCE

It becomes very hard to question incidences like this because many people blindly believe that the RCMP do a fabulous job, and that many lives have now been saved and an evil terrorist sympathizer plot thwarted. Why do I have such a hard time believing it is as black and white and cut and dried as that??

a reply to: AccessDenied

He had explosives, one of which he did detonate, which is why he was killed by the RCMP. Had there been no viable - real time threat they would have just arrested him.

I'm not a huge fan of the RCMP, but I've been following the story and so far I can't find anything to complain about the way they handled this.

~Tenth

The 18 conditions of "bail" do seem pretty ludicrous and I don't know of anywhere else that has such "peace" orders but in the end it did in fact stop him bombing someone somewhere.

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

This is a link to a interview with his dad .its audio on CBC As It Happens ..

Wayne Driver had feared it would come to this, but it still came as a shock. He learned Thursday that his radicalized son, Aaron Driver, was killed the day before in a police standoff with RCMP. Police learned he was planning an 'imminent' attack and had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

www.cbc.ca... e-standoff-1.3716873

originally posted by: PhyllidaDavenport
The 18 conditions of "bail" do seem pretty ludicrous and I don't know of anywhere else that has such "peace" orders but in the end it did in fact stop him bombing someone somewhere.

It's part of our own 'patriot act' sorta deal. We'd rather allow people to live their lives and try to rehabilitate them instead of just killing and or placing them in prison.

So we'll often get Terror suspects who have done nothing ,but have shown willingness to do something, get picked up and told we are watching you closely and if you dare take up arms against our citizens in any form, we will find you and you'll spend the rest of your life in prison.

That list in particular was...even for us, long, but I'd rather see efforts like this made than what we've seen elsewhere.

a reply to: the2ofusr1

My thoughts exactly!

a reply to: [post=21120425]tothetenthpower[/p]

Its kind of a good thing in a way, I agree, but even with all those measures in place, he still went ahead apparently and triggered something that alerted the RCMP to a possible public suicide bombing despite being under constant surveillance which I think could go to prove the sheer depth of radicalisation in these particular people and could be said to show the impossibility of de-radicalising them

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

Oh there's definitely a 'breaking point' to these sort of people where you've just gone too far to return, I agree entirely.

I'm not mad at them shooting and killing domestic terrorists, not one bit, I just hope they do it according to due process. In this case, I think they succeeded and I'm no huge fan of the RCMP.

~Tenth

originally posted by: PhyllidaDavenport

Its kind of a good thing in a way, I agree, but even with all those measures in place, he still went ahead apparently and triggered something that alerted the RCMP to a possible public suicide bombing despite being under constant surveillance which I think could go to prove the sheer depth of radicalisation in these particular people and could be said to show the impossibility of de-radicalising them

The tip came from the FBI.