A father and son accused of planning a terrorist attack in Toronto had filmed a video of themselves holding weapons in front of the ISIS flag, sources told Global News.
The video of Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, 62, and Mostafa Eldidi, 26, showed them with an axe and machete, according to three sources who spoke on the condition of not being identified.
It may explain why police have claimed the planned attack was in the “advanced stages.” Police seized both bladed weapons during the arrests on Sunday night.
RCMP tactical officers took the pair into custody at a hotel north of Toronto as they were allegedly close to conducting a mass casualty attack at an unspecified target.
They have been charged with six ISIS-related terrorism offences. Two of the charges accuse them of possessing an axe and machete for the benefit of ISIS.
One of the counts is for an aggravated assault the father allegedly committed for ISIS outside of Canada in 2015. The charge does not specify where, and the RCMP declined to elaborate.
But two sources said the elder Eldidi had allegedly appeared in a June 2015 ISIS propaganda video in which he was shown dismembering a prisoner with a sword.
A video obtained by Global News that appears to match the one that resulted in the aggravated assault charge shows a prisoner wearing an orange jumpsuit and suspended from a pole in a desert.
A man wearing a black robe and a cap bearing the ISIS logo then hacks at the prisoner’s limbs with a sword. His face briefly visible, he appears to be a middle-aged man with a henna-tinted beard.
It is unclear whether the victim was already dead when he was dismembered. The video, titled “Detering Spies,” was published in June 2015 by the media arm of the ISIS branch in western Iraq, according to an expert.
At a news conference on Wednesday, police provided few details on the case, saying the investigation was continuing and a publication ban was in effect.
They said there was no further threat to public safety.
The Eldidis are among more than three dozen suspected ISIS supporters who have been charged in Canada with offences related to the terrorist group, formed in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
A Global News analysis of police, prosecution and court records found that Canadian authorities have charged 38 people with ISIS-related crimes since then.
Twenty-seven of those were men, including the Eldidis. Another six were women, while five were minors. Nine of the arrests have come since the start of 2023.
The charges range from passport fraud to terrorism and murder. But all had one common denominator: they were carried out for ISIS.
Of those accused, 20 have been convicted to date, while 14 are still awaiting trials. Four were found not guilty or their charges were stayed.
In addition to prosecutions in this country, several Canadians were put on trial in the United States and United Kingdom.
On July 30, Khaled Hussein of Edmonton was sentenced to five years in a British prison for his role in a terror group linked to ISIS attacks.
Abdullahi Ahmed Abdullahi, who robbed an Edmonton jewelry store to fund ISIS, was extradited to the U.S. and sentenced to 20 years.
A senior Canadian ISIS member, Mohamed Khalifa, was sentenced to life in the U.S. for producing ISIS videos showing him executing victims.
Canadian officials have not relied on prosecutions alone to deal with ISIS supporters. In some cases, suspected extremists were denied passports to prevent them from joining ISIS overseas.
Another common tactic was to ask the courts for terrorism peace bonds, which impose restrictions on suspects in the name of public safety.
Several ISIS supporters were never prosecuted because they were killed, either during air strikes in Syria and Iraq, or in Canada itself.
One of the most shocking ISIS-related crimes may be the shooting of four family members at their Mississauga, Ont., takeout restaurant, Chicken Land.
According to prosecutors, the shooting was ordered by Niqash Abbasi, who ran an ISIS fundraising operation out of a warehouse near Toronto’s Pearson airport.
When he found out that one of his employees, Naim Akl, was planning to go to the authorities, Abbasi came up with a plan to stop him: He would kill not only Akl, but his entire family.
At 7:17 p.m. on May 29, 2021, a green Honda Accord pulled up outside Chicken Land and Anand Nath got out wearing a hoodie. He went inside and started shooting.
He shot Naim Akl in the face and ear with a 9-mm handgun. When Akl fell to the floor, Nath shot him a third time.
He fired four more times, wounding Akl’s mother, father and brother before jumping into the trunk of the waiting Accord, driven by Suliman Raza.
The murder took 18 seconds.
The Chicken Land shooting was solved when a friend of the gunman went to homicide detectives, resulting in the arrest of Nath, Raza and Abbasi.
On their electronic devices, police found ISIS propaganda and messages about their support for the group and Akl’s “treachery.”
All three were convicted in June 2024.
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca