TORONTO, May 2 (UPI) -- The FBI is probing new suspects in an alleged terror plot to kill people by derailing a passenger train between Toronto and New York, a U.S. lawmaker said.
"I think that they're looking at a number of suspects and potential suspects," House Homeland Security Committee member Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., told The Globe and Mail newspaper.
Higgins, the ranking member of the committee's Subcommittee on Counter-terrorism and Intelligence, said he received classified briefings about the case.
Two men arrested in Canada April 22 denied the charges in court appearances the next day.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police charged Raed Jaser, 35, and Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, with plotting murder, terrorist recruitment and terrorism in connection with the alleged derailment plot.
Investigators said the pair relied on "direction and guidance" from al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in Iran.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry in London said there was "no shred of evidence" to support the allegations.
RCMP Chief Superintendent Jennifer Strachan said the two suspects had studied train movements and rail lines in and around Toronto and plotted to attack a train operated by government-owned Via Rail Canada within Canada.
Police declined to identify what train or train line the men had planned to target or to describe how the derailment was to have occurred.
Via Rail runs a train in conjunction with Amtrak to New York City's Penn Station from Toronto.
"Until an investigation is concluded, I don't think we'll know whether it's one, two or four or more suspects," Higgins told the newspaper.
"But when you're talking about terrorist activity, a lot of these groups operate within the context of cells, so there are connections, maybe not in the execution of it, but in the planning of it. Who knew about it? Was it being ordered from somewhere else to be played out in North America?"
A source told The Globe and Mail the FBI questioned a man last week.
Higgins said he expected the FBI or the FBI and RCMP would release more information about the case shortly.
The FBI had no immediate comment.
RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Laurence Trottier told the newspaper the force had "no additional information" to release.
