How a Would-Be Bomber Rebuilt His Life

T he email began : “I hope you’re doing well and I hope this email does not cause you any anxiety. I really mean that.”

The name attached to the November 8, 2023, message—Zakaria Amara—was one I had not thought about in years, but there was a time when I had spent hours studying him from afar. Amara was one of the leaders in the 2006 terrorism case where eighteen Muslim men and youth, four under the age of eighteen, were arrested for plotting to blow up downtown Toronto targets and a military base.

Back then, I was the Toronto Star’s national security correspondent, and we covered the story extensively—weeks, months, years of ink. It was considered Canada’s first large-scale “homegrown terrorism” plot, a term that took on new significance after the September 11, 2001, attacks to describe suspects who became violently radical without ever leaving their borders.

The plan went like this: two U-Haul trucks, each containing a one-tonne fertilizer bomb, would be parked in front of the targeted buildings during the morning rush hour. A third bomb would simultaneously hit a military base.

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