A Pakistani man accused of planning an ISIS-inspired mass shooting in New York has been ordered to appear in a Quebec court for a U.S. extradition hearing next month.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, who’d been living near Toronto, is wanted by U.S. authorities to stand trial in connection with an alleged plot to attack a Jewish centre in Brooklyn.
Khan, 20, remained silent from the prisoner box during a brief appearance in Superior Court in Montreal on Friday morning. He stood and nodded when the judge told him he would return for an extradition hearing on Feb. 20.
RCMP arrested Khan near the U.S. border in Ormstown, Que., southwest of Montreal, in September. Court records show the FBI became aware of Khan in late 2023 after an informant raised concerns about his social media posts.
New court documents reveal the FBI tracked Muhammad Shahzeb Khan online for months while he lived in Mississauga, Ont., crafting an ISIS-inspired mass murder of Jews in New York. Khan was arrested near the Quebec-New York border in September.
The FBI said an investigation later uncovered Khan’s alleged plan to form “a real offline cell” of ISIS supporters and kill “as many Jewish people as possible” around Oct. 7, 2024, the anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel.
According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, Khan used encrypted messaging apps, telling undercover officers to gather AR-style rifles, ammunition, hunting knives and tactical gear. “We are going to NYC to slaughter them,” Khan purportedly wrote.
Earlier this month, a senior FBI official appeared to allude to Khan’s alleged plot while speaking to reporters about the investigation into the deadly New Year’s Day truck attack in New Orleans.
“Over the last year, we saw multiple plots in the U.S. that we were able to disrupt,” the FBI’s deputy assistant director of counterterrorism, Christopher Raia said, pointing to a foiled plan set for October in New York City.
Khan faces one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
CBC News previously reported Khan was in the process of seeking refugee status in Canada, according to an immigration consultant based in Mississauga, Ont.
Although Khan had come to Canada on a student visa in June 2023, his former Mississauga landlord said he wasn’t actually studying anywhere.
“He wasn’t going to college,” Mudasar Hussain recently told CBC. “He was always at home.”
Hussain added that Khan “didn’t really speak to anyone in the house” and one day left, “out of nowhere.”
A security assessment by Canadian immigration officials had not found any “risk indicators” ahead of Khan’s arrival in 2023, records show.
His Montreal-based lawyer, Gaétan Bourassa, told reporters last month that he suspects U.S. law enforcement lured Khan into committing the acts he’s accused of. “My impression [is that he] was the victim of entrapment,” he said.
At the time, Bourassa said he was waiting to view more evidence in Khan’s case.
