A 24-year-old terror suspect who was killed in a confrontation with RCMP in a southern Ontario town Wednesday was âangry God took his motherâ at age seven, according to his distraught father, who is a retired soldier.
Aaron Driver, a suspected Islamic State sympathizer who authorities believed was planning to carry out a suicide bombing on Canadian soil was killed in Strathroy, Ont., where he worked at automotive parts supplier Meridian Lightweight Technologies.
Driver had been placed on a peace bond in February after expressing support for Islamic State militants and attacks, including the ones that killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo in Ottawa and Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in Quebec.
Driverâs father Wayne was informed of the death by his daughter on Wednesday night.
âIt was kind of unbelievable, how could he go so far and then reality sets in, and itâs, âOh my god, my son is dead â what was he thinking,â Wayne said in an interview on ŰÎŰ´ŤĂ˝ Channel Thursday.
Wayne said he hadnât seen his son for two years, but tried to âconnectâ last month. âHe said Iâm not talking to you and he hung up the phone.â
Death of mother
Wayne told CTV Edmonton that his son started as a happy child but became angry and âhated the worldâ after the death of his mother from brain cancer at age seven.
âI donât think he truly grieved the loss,â he said.
Aaron was taken to grief counselling but he âwould not participate,â according to Wayne, who gave an extensive interview Thursday from Cold Lake, Alta.
Wayne said Aaron was a troubled teenager who moved out of their house at age 16 and lived in a âhalfway house.â It was around that time that he found Islam, according to his father.
âWhen he moved back in with us in 2012, he had stopped using drugs, stopped getting in trouble with the law, stopped drinking,â Wayne said. âHe was going back to school to get his Grade 12. He was working. All was well.â
Wayne said that âbeing Christians, obviously we wanted him to come back to our faithâ but that Aaronâs newfound religion âseemed to do him some good.â
In retrospect, he believes Aaron âhad a hate on for Christiansâ and that his son was rebelling because he was âstill angry God took his mother.â
Wayne said Aaron may also have been affected by the loss of his son who was âstrangled during deliveryâ when Aaron was 19.
Wayne said Aaron and his girlfriend âdid not realize their baby was in distress.â
Visit by CSIS
In early 2015, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service visited Wayne and showed him a thick binder full of online activity in which Aaron expressed support for jihad.
Wayne says he could only get through the first several pages of tweets and Facebook comments.
âWhen you see babies being murdered laying there in a mass grave and heâs commenting âgood for youâ my first thought was, whatâs wrong with you?â he said.
He said that was the first and last time he ever heard from CSIS.
Wayne said he and wife were âafraid that he may even kill us while we were sleeping, because the hatred had gone that deep.â
When Aaron moved to Winnipeg, Wayne says he asked the local mosque try to âturn him around.â A counsellor reached out, he said, âbut obviously he was unable to get through to him as well.â
Wayne said he never gave up on his son, even though his son had unfriended him on Facebook and refused to speak with him over the phone.
âHe had a family that loved him,â Wayne said. âHe went down a dark path.â
âGod tells us, to love the person, hate the sin,â he added. âI mean where would we all be if we hated each other?â
Tip from the FBI
At a news conference in Ottawa Thursday afternoon, RCMP said that police received a tip from the FBI about an âimminent threat.â
The tip included a video of Driver, and a warning that he planned to detonate an explosive device in an urban centre. The RCMP said they were able to quickly determine that Driver was the masked man in the video.
In the video, aired during the news conference, Driver looks directly into the camera as he complains about the âenemies of Islamâ and vows an attack on Canada.
Driver was on intelligence officialsâ radar for previously expressing his support for Islamic State over Twitter. He applauded the 2014 attack on Parliament Hill and encouraged ISIS to target the Canadian military and law enforcement. Driver often used the alias Harun Abdurahman.
Driver was arrested for allegedly posting Islamic State propaganda online. However, he was never charged. When he was released, Driver was ordered to comply with dozens of conditions, including wearing a GPS tracker.
Last February, Driverâs lawyer and the Crown agreed to a peace bond, saying there were âreasonable grounds to fear that he may participate, contribute directly or indirectly in the activity of a terrorist group.â At the time, Driver had been challenging an attempt by federal authorities to limit his activities on suspicion he might engage in or help with, terrorist activities.
He was allowed to remove his GPS tracking bracelet, but was still prohibited from using a computer, cellphone or social media. The restrictions were to end on Aug. 31.
âVery reasonable, fairly articulateâ
Terrorism export Lorne Dawson Thursday that he and his colleagues were ârather surprisedâ Driver had moved from âtalkâ to âaction.â
Dawson interviewed Driver on behalf of the defence when he was seeking the peace bond and found him to be âin many respects, a very reasonable, fairly articulate, sensible young manâ who happened to hold âvery strong radical views.â
âHe was very firm in his belief that ISIS was justified, the caliphate was true and that (ISIS leader) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was the true leader of Muslims,â Dawson said.
Dawson added that although he was âquite certain that if (Driver) had the opportunity, he would have left Canada and tried to travel to Syria,â Driver had âasserted he wasnât a violent personâ and therefore he seemed unlikely to attack Canadian civilians.
With a report from CTV Edmonton's Dan Grummett