Two men were arrested and charged Monday with plotting an Al-Qaida-sponsored attack on an Amtrak passenger train in Canada, authorities said Monday.
Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto, were arrested and charged Monday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. The pair was set to appear Tuesday for bail hearings.
Innocent people would have been killed or seriously wounded, the RCMP said, but there was no imminent threat to the public or to railway workers. The threat was still in its planning stage, according to police.
Neither suspect is a Canadian citizen, the RCMP said, though it declined to say where they were from, adding that they were receiving "direction and guidance" from al Qaida in Iran.
Multiple sources told NBC 4 New York that trains out of New York may have been scouted by the suspects.
Police said they had begun their investigation, conducted jointly with other Canadian and U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies, had begun in August 2012.