FBI agent who helped RCMP nab Via Rail terror plotters has one big regret

OTTAWA — An undercover FBI agent who helped convict two men of plotting to derail a Via Rail passenger train did not see the arrests as a triumph because he feared another extremist had eluded his grasp.

In a new book published under his cover name from the operation, Tamer Elnoury reveals how gaining the confidence of the would-be rail saboteurs led to knowledge of an apparent al-Qaida sleeper terrorist in the United States.

Elnoury is still haunted by the thought of the jihadi who got away.

“Every time I hear about someone committing a terrorist act on U.S. soil, I wonder if that was the American sleeper. My biggest regret is that I couldn’t find him.”

Elnoury is an Arabic-speaking Muslim agent doing undercover counterterrorism work for the U.S. FBI.

“American Radical” traces his involvement in the investigation that led to terrorism convictions and life sentences in 2015 for Chiheb Esseghaier, a Tunisian citizen doing doctoral research in Montreal, and Raed Jaser, a stateless Palestinian who had come to Toronto as a teenager with his family.

Esseghaier “popped up on the FBI’s radar” after he made contact with some al-Qaida operatives online, Elnoury writes. The FBI alerted Canadian officials. Elnoury posed as a globe-trotting American real estate magnate who despised western ways and funnelled his profits to his overseas uncle, a financier for al-Qaida.

In June 2012, Elnoury managed to ensure he and Esseghaier were seated together on a flight to California. They quickly became friends and Esseghaier was soon openly talking about shooting down planes with a portable missile launcher, the book says.

Later, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service learned of an ostensible fishing trip that turned out to be a mission with Jaser to scout a railway bridge in Ontario they planned to sabotage, sending a train between New York and Toronto hurtling into the river below, killing many passengers.

The file was handed to the RCMP and Elnoury was enlisted to gather evidence. He paid a visit to his friend in Montreal.

During a drive to Toronto to meet Jaser, Esseghaier confided details of the operation: alQaida planners in Iran ordered him to cut a hole in the train tracks. He and Jaser would use jackhammers to cut the track, while Elnoury would be needed to act as lookout.

Esseghaier also said something that made Elnoury’s heart race: there was a “soldier” in the U.S., an al-Qaida sleeper agent known as Al-Amriki, the American. Esseghaier expected to meet him one day.

“We needed to rethink the case. Chiheb was our only link to the American sleeper. There was no way we could arrest him before we identified the other sleeper.”

However, the RCMP executed arrest warrants, ending the operation.