Toronto police are taking a hard look at the Etobicoke house and the people pictured with Mayor Rob Ford in the now notorious nighttime photo.

Two of the men photographed alongside Ford in front of the rundown bungalow at 15 Windsor Rd. are alleged members of a violent Etobicoke street gang targeted in Project Traveller. Both were arrested in the Thursday pre-dawn raids.

The third, killed in a downtown shooting in March, was also tied to the gang, sources told the Star.

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Police, in advance of the massive drug and gun raids, obtained a search warrant for the north Etobicoke house and at least 11 other nearby addresses — including the cluster of Dixon Rd. highrises that have become ground zero in the Ford crack video scandal.

The previously unknown man in the photo — given to the Star by the same individuals who showed two reporters a cellphone video of the mayor appearing to smoke crack cocaine — is Monir Kassim.

Kassim, 20, was arrested in the raids Thursday and has been charged with trafficking in weapons and drugs (cocaine and marijuana) for the benefit of a criminal organization. He also faces charges of conspiracy to commit unauthorized possession of a firearm, breach of house arrest, and theft under $5,000.

His longtime friend, Muhammad Khattak, also flanking the mayor in the photo, was charged with participating in cocaine trafficking for the benefit of a criminal organization and trafficking in marijuana.

Police officers carried evidence bags, including what appeared to be a Toshiba laptop, out of the 19-year-old’s home on Mercury Rd. Thursday.

Khattak was wounded in the same March shooting that killed the third man in the photo, Anthony Smith.

Shortly before 5 a.m. Thursday, hundreds of police officers descended on addresses across Toronto, Windsor and Edmonton as part of a year-long drug and gun investigation across several jurisdictions that has so far netted 43 arrests, 40 firearms and $3 million worth of drugs.

Several law enforcement sources have told the Star that during the course of their investigation police became aware of the cellphone video of Ford appearing to smoke crack cocaine. The Star reporters saw the video outside 320 Dixon Rd., one of the highrises raided Thursday.

On Friday, in an interview with CBC radio, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair once again refused to deny the mayor’s involvement in the investigation.

Matt Galloway, host of Metro Morning, asked: “You could have very easily exonerated Rob Ford ... why didn’t you do that?”

“I’m unable to answer your question without violating the terms of the law,” the chief replied.

Of the photo, Blair said: “The photo is real and we know who the individuals are in that photo.” Asked if he was troubled that the mayor was associating with the men in the photo, the police chief declined to offer an opinion.

“The knowledge I have of those individuals arises from that investigation and the evidence that we’ve gathered, and so I’m not able to comment on it.”

Reached at his home Friday, Kassim’s brother Samir said he didn’t know anything about the circumstances in which the photo was taken.

“All he said was he’d seen the mayor. And he just wanted to take a picture.”

Samir confirmed the photo was snapped about a year ago. The three young men posing with the mayor all knew each other from childhood and attended school together.

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On Friday, the Star learned of search warrants taken out on 12 Toronto addresses that are connected to Project Traveller. The information supporting those warrants is sealed. The Star is challenging that order in court.

Several of the 12 addresses were hit during the Thursday morning raids, as police in tactical gear broke down doors with battering rams and tossed in percussion grenades to disorient residents. At least one was searched last Sunday. Police knocked at a ninth-floor apartment on Queensplate Dr. around 7 p.m., searched it and left.

One of the 12 addresses named on a search warrant list is suite 1703 at 320 Dixon Rd. — the unit sources told the Star that Ford identified to staff as a place where the video may be stored. However, it does not appear to have been raided Thursday morning.

Nor was the bungalow on Windsor Rd. Neighbours said the last time they saw squad cars at the address was on May 21, when police responded to an assault call. Officers had, however, recently been on the street asking residents if they had ever seen the three men in the photo with Ford.

One of the home’s residents, Elena Johnson, refused to tell the Star if police had been at the address.

Earlier this week, before his arrest, Monir Kassim was asked by two Star reporters if he was the third man in the photo. Kassim denied it was him.

He was not home Thursday morning when police raided his family’s apartment at 390 Dixon Rd. despite having told the Star he was under house arrest.

While police were searching the unit he showed up at the highrise. “I’m doing all right,” he told a Star reporter before jogging off toward Dixon Rd.

A short while later Kassim was arrested outside a nearby coffee shop.

After the raid, Kassim’s mother said her son had spent several years of his youth in Egypt and returned to Canada in 2012.

“He was a wonderful kid. He wasn’t even in Canada for the past three years. He just came back. I took him away from this country — I moved myself to Egypt.”

She says Kassim was working toward his GED.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what’s happening. We never had any police problems before with him,” she said.

With files from Betsy Powell, Carys Mills and Jesse McLean

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