Canadian police foil al Qaeda-backed plot to derail train There were unconfirmed media reports that one was Tunisian and the other came from the United Arab Emirates and that they had not been in Canada for a long period. During the surveillance operation, the two men were monitored as they cased out trains and railways in the Greater Toronto area, Canada's most populous area. They are thought to have been planning to attack a train destined for New York. The arrests were executed by a special joint task force of Canadian police and anti-terrorism units. Operation Smooth was conducted with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security in the US. The Canadian authorities said the operation was still underway and they were last night searching addresses linked to the two men. They are understood to have been tracking the men's movements, email messages, Internet activity and mobile phone calls since receiving a tip-off from the Muslim community in Canada. "Had this plot been carried out, it would have resulted in innocent people being killed or seriously injured," said James Malizia, the RCMP's assistant Commissioner While the RCMP believed that these individuals had the capacity and intent to carry out these criminal acts, there was no imminent threat to the general public, rail employees, train passengers or infrastructure. Al Qaeda has a long record of identifying public transport targets, including the July 2005 London Underground and bus attacks and the 2004 Madrid train bombings. The terror faction's affiliate in Yemen has taken on an increasingly active role in co-ordinating international terrorist plots, but this is thought to have been the first time that al Qaeda representatives in Iran have been accused of involvement. Although Iran is a Shia-led theocracy and al Qaeda is an extremist Sunni group, Teheran has sheltered several leading al Qaeda figures since they were forced out of neighbouring Afghanistan by the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. The Iranians hold most of them under house arrest and monitor their activities but have allowed them to maintain links with al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. But if Teheran has now allowed them to guide an operation in Canada, that would be an alarming new development for Western counter-terrorism officials.