A Pakistani citizen has been arrested in Quebec as he was allegedly preparing an ISIS terrorist attack targeting Jews in New York City.
The attack was to take place on Oct. 7, the anniversary of the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 in Israel, according to U.S. authorities.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, was arrested on Wednesday but neither Canadian nor U.S. police would confirm it until Friday.
Khan intended to carry out a mass shooting in support of ISIS at a Jewish center in Brooklyn, N.Y., the U.S. alleged in an indictment.
The RCMP has not yet commented on the case.
But the U.S. Justice Department said Khan began expressing his support for ISIS on social media and messaging applications last November.
Speaking with two undercover officers, he allegedly began discussing using AR-15 style rifles to target Jewish community buildings.
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“Khan also provided details about how he would cross the border from Canada into the United States to conduct the attacks,” the Justice Department said.
On Aug. 20, Khan decided the attack would take place in New York City, specifically at the Jewish centre in Brooklyn.
He claimed that New York was “perfect to target jews” because it has the “largest Jewish population In America,” the U.S. said.
Even if the attack did not target a specific event, he wrote that “we could rack up easily a lot of jews,” adding, “we are going to nyc to slaughter them.”
He allegedly sent a photo of the target, and told the undercover operators to get rifles, ammunition and “some good hunting [knives] so we can slit their throats.”
He allegedly wrote that “if we succeed with our plan this would be the largest Attack on US soil since 9/11,” referring to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
On Wednesday, he was making his way to the U.S. border when he was arrested in Ormstown, Que., about 20 minutes from the U.S. border.
The U.S. has charged him with attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
One witness wrote on Twitter that an RCMP tactical team used a stun grenade to arrest a man in a minivan with Ontario licence plates.
This would not be the first time a foreign terror suspect has attempted to cross the border to carry out a terrorist attack in the United States.
A failed refugee claimant living in Montreal, Ahmed Ressam, was caught at the British Columbia-Washington State border in December 1999.
An Algerian trained in Afghanistan, Ressam was on his way to bomb Los Angeles International Airport when U.S. border officials arrested him.
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
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