INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
People lay candles and left messages at a memorial for victims of the crash (AFP)Toronto, Canada:
At least
10 people have died after a man plowed a white rental van into a crowd of pedestrians in Canada's biggest city Toronto on Monday, in what
police dubbed a "deliberate" attack.The incident took place in broad daylight around 16 kilometers (10 miles) from a conference center
hosting a meeting of G7 ministers, but officials said they had no evidence of a link to the event."The actions definitely looked
deliberate," Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders told journalists.Ralph Goodale, the minister of public security, added that "on the basis of
all available information at the present time, there would appear to be no national security connection to this particular incident." The
driver steered his vehicle toward people just before 1:30 p.m
(Reuters)"Horrible day in Toronto," he had posted earlier on Twitter
"Senseless violence takes heavy toll.Police arrested a suspect at the scene -- who police identified later as 25-year-old Alex Minassian
from a northern Toronto suburb -- of the attack, whose initial death toll of nine jumped to 10 after one person succumbed to
injuries.Fifteen people remained in hospitals throughout the city, Saunders said, adding that local, provincial and federal investigators
were probing the case.At the scene, at least three bodies could be seen under orange sheets and a long stretch of road was sealed off with
police incident tape.The suspect and a police officer faced off, their guns drawn
The suspect eventually surrendered his weapon and was taken into custody.Vehicle attacks have been carried out to deadly effect by
extremists in a number of capitals and major cities, including London, Paris, New York and Nice.Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland
said the G7 meeting would continue as planned into Tuesday, with officials discussing ways to secure democratic societies from foreign
interference."The work of the ministers obviously goes on
This is a very sad day for the people of Toronto and the people of Canada," she said. This was one of the most violent in recent Canadian
(Reuters)''Really Fast''Officers were called to the scene -- on Yonge Street at the corner with Finch Avenue -- around 1:30 pm (1730 GMT),
police said.A white rental van with a dented front bumper was stopped on the sidewalk of a major intersection, surrounded by police
vehicles."He was going really fast," witness Alex Shaker told CTV television."All I could see was just people one by one getting knocked
out, knocked out, one by one," Shaker said
"There are so many people lying down on the streets."Another witness, Jamie Eopni, told local Toronto television station CP24: "It was
If anybody was on that street, they would have been hit on the sidewalk." Toronto police chief Mark Saunders identified the man as Alek
Minassian. ''Deliberate'' But No Terror Link Though the act seemed "deliberate," officials did not identify a terror link.Canada has only
rarely been the scene of terror attacks.In October, a man stabbed a police officer in the western city of Edmonton before slamming his van
into a group of pedestrians, hurting four people.And in Quebec in October 2014, a Canadian man ran over two soldiers in a parking lot with
his car, killing one of them
The driver was shot dead by police when he attacked them with a knife.In March 2016, a Canadian who claimed to have radical Islamist
sympathies attacked two soldiers at a military recruitment center in Toronto.(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by
staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
