Justin Ling: Hired gunmen are attacking Canadians. The government should tell us what it knows about who’s paying them

The going rate to organize a string of attacks on synagogues and Jewish community centres is a measly US$10,000: a third up front, the rest after the terror has been inflicted.

We have evidence not only that such a cash-for-terror campaign has hit Canada, but also that it’s being financed by Iran.

You wouldn’t know it from listening to our security services and politicians. While our allies have publicly attributed this violence to Tehran — and Moscow — Canada stays frustratingly mum.

It’s time for Ottawa to be frank with the public: credible evidence suggests a hostile foreign power is trying to stoke division in our society and, particularly, to make Jews in Canada afraid.

We know there has been a rise in violence targeting Jews in Canada in recent years. According to an audit of antisemitic incidents by Jewish organization B’nai Brith Canada, there have been at least 100 acts of outright violence against the Jewish community since 2023. (This is corroborated by police data.) But this summer, B’nai Brith observed a massive jump: 27 incidents in just the first half of 2026. These attacks, along with a rise in harassment and vandalism, have shattered many Canadian Jews’ sense of safety.

Thankfully, the police have made arrests. In June, officers arrested a man in North York who screamed about Israel as he pelted a real estate agent with rocks and death threats. He was charged with a hate crime. And last year, Toronto police arrested Amir Arvahi Azar, charged with attacking six different Jewish institutions and advocating genocide.

Other incidents are unsolved. Toronto police don’t know who opened fire on Kiva’s Bagel Bar. The Bais Chaya Mushka Elementary School in North York has been shot at three times: police have laid charges in only one of these incidents and are investigating it as a potential hate crime. 

The masterminds behind some of these attacks, however, remain a mystery. Earlier this year, Mohamed Ilyess Akodad pleaded guilty to firebombing a synagogue in Montreal’s West Island but said he had not committed the attack out of animus for the Jewish community; rather, he said, he’d been given a “mission” and promised $15,000. Akodad told a Montreal courtroom he received $3,000 upfront but backed out after the first attack. “They saw I wasn’t serious, and they blocked me,” Akodad said, per CBC Montreal.

Who they are is unclear.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, police have made a spate of arrests pertaining to what they allege is a gun-for-hire network of young mercenaries who accept payment to shoot up locations at the behest of anonymous benefactors. Two seized firearms have been tied to more than two dozen shootings — including one that targeted the U.S. Consulate in downtown Toronto.

The Toronto Police Service told me in a statement that “those ballistic links did not include the shootings targeting synagogues or Jewish schools,” but Chief Myron Demkiw has confirmed that they “appear to share a similar alleged modus operandi: criminals for hire.”

That’s essentially where things stand now. The police continue to investigate, but they lack the evidence to determine conclusively who might have ordered these attacks and why. But in May, prosecutors in New York seemingly cracked the case wide open, when they arrested Mohammad Al-Saadi.

Al-Saadi is an Iraqi national and allegedly a commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iraqi paramilitary group openly affiliated with the Iranian regime. (It is distinct from the similarly named Lebanese organization.)

In May, Al-Saadi was charged with providing material support to Kata’ib Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers a terror group. Prosecutors allege that al-Saadi helped carry out at least 18 attacks in Europe — including the bombing of a Belgian synagogue and the firebombing of a Jewish school in the Netherlands — and two successful terror plots in Canada.

Prosecutors cite Twitter and Telegram posts in which Al-Saadi allegedly encourages and celebrates attacks against Jewish communities, the U.S. and Israel. They’ve also produced taped phone calls in which Al-Saadi boasts of running “multiple teams” in Canada and claims “our people” were behind attacks on “the consulate and the Knesset,” Israel’s parliament. He offered, allegedly, US$10,000 for three attacks in the U.S.

After his arrest, Al-Saadi allegedly told FBI agents he had been a commander in “the resistance,” which includes Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard. Prosecutors allege he was “like a son” to Qassam Soleimani, the Iranian general who was killed in American airstrikes in 2020.

In the call, Al-Saadi allegedly stressed the importance of sponsoring more violence in the West — but said the recruits needn’t be true believers; they could be “the Mafia” or “a Mexican person.” The allegations haven’t been tested in court, but using local criminals to conduct state-directed violence is increasingly common — “part of a broader geopolitical shift to the use of criminal actors,” as Jessica Davis, president of Insight Threat Intelligence, told me last week. Davis specializes in illicit and terror financing and has worked throughout Canada’s national security community.

Laundering violence and terror through thugs and gangs — “disposable assets,” Davis calls them — is cheap, quick and nearly impossible to prevent.

Tehran, we know, hired a Russian mobster to kidnap and kill the Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad (the would-be assassin thankfully failed). It also allegedly planned to conduct a similar hit on Canadian human-rights icon Irwin Cotler. And we know Indian intelligence hired goons to kill Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist, in British Columbia in 2023.

Targeting dissidents is bad enough. But if Iran is using criminal intermediaries to perpetrate random violence against the Jewish community writ large, that’s a worrying escalation. “They’ve added on a layer of chaos-sowing,” Davis said.

Last May, a series of arson attacks targeted then-British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s car and home. Recriminations flew as to which domestic faction might be responsible. The two culprits, convicted in June, told a familiar story: an anonymous social media account had offered them money to carry out the attack.

The anonymous benefactor also hired them to spray-paint anti-Muslim graffiti on London mosques and hang posters advertising a far-right group. A BBC investigation connected the paymaster to a senior Russian official.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in Russia’s pan-European terror campaign, which is plainly intended to whip up division by exploiting animosity towards migrants, Muslims and Jews across the continent. It’s what the Soviets called “active measures.”

While the evidence suggests Iran is responsible for recent acts of violence in Canada — possibly through other groups, as well as Kata’ib Hezbollah — Davis said the Russian government remains a “plausible suspect.” Senior Canadian intelligence officials told me last year they were actively monitoring for the possibility that Russia would extend its campaign to Canada.

Credible evidence is mounting that foreign adversaries are paying Canadians to attack other Canadians in hopes of turning us against one another. Why won’t the federal government just say so?

I requested a background briefing with CSIS and the RCMP on these attacks, and on the broader threat Iran and Russia pose in recruiting criminals. Both agencies declined. The office of Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree sent me a lengthy statement that failed to address the threat posed by Iran or the mercenaries they employ.

Ruby Sahota, secretary of state for combatting crime, came close when she told the House of Commons that “the shootings at the synagogues” seemed to have been conducted by shooters “paid and hired by a foreign entity.” But Sahota admitted she was only referencing what had already been reported in the media.

Some level of secrecy is needed, especially around ongoing investigations — but it is increasingly absurd that Ottawa has refused to acknowledge ample evidence that a foreign plot is afoot. And it’s particularly galling as Canada comes fresh off a big national discussion about how secrecy can be self-harming.

Last year, Canada’s public inquiry into foreign interference warned that “adversary states are becoming increasing aggressive,” crossing “‘red lines,’ such as acts of violence, with impunity.” Its advice was plain: attribute this violence to these rogue states and disclose such threats to the public.

Ottawa has simply ignored the recommendation.

Our allies have been more forthcoming. Paris has pointed the finger at Tehran for a foiled terror plot in France, while London has identified and banned an Iranian proxy group for its involvement in arson attacks on British soil. (Both the Conservative Party of Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs have called upon this country to take similar action.)

Canada co-signed a statement with 21 allies, accusing Iran of using “local criminal groups” to target Jews worldwide — but ask Ottawa if Iran is conducting its campaign here, and they won’t tell you.

There is a lot of good police work happening on the ground to stop this violence, whether domestic or foreign-directed: in June, Toronto officer Marc Pinizzotto gave his life to bring in an alleged gun-for-hire network member.

As a society, we have more to do to prevent homegrown hate and violence. But this work is made only more difficult by the murky involvement of hostile foreign powers hoping to keep us at one another’s throats.

Canadians need to be briefed on the real possibility that Jews in Canada — and Canada itself — are the targets of this terror.