Somali-born teen arrested in US car bomb sting
U.S. law enforcement agencies thwarted an attempt to blow up a car bomb at an annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony on Friday evening in Portland, Oregon, officials said early Saturday.
The Justice Department identified the chief suspect as 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud of the town of Corvallis, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Somali descent.
Mohamud was arrested at about 5:45 p.m. local time just after he dialed a mobile phone that he thought would blow up a van laden with explosives but instead brought federal agents and local police swooping in to take him into custody.
"The threat was very real. Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale," said Arthur Balizan, a special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon. "At the same time, I want to reassure the people of this community that, at every turn, we denied him the ability to actually carry out the attack."
According to court documents, in August 2009, Mohamud was in email contact with an accomplice overseas who is believed to be involved in terrorist activities.
In December 2009, while the accomplice was located in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan, Mohamud and the suspect discussed the possibility of Mohamud traveling to Pakistan to engage in jihad.
This man allegedly referred Mohamud to a second conspirator overseas and provided Mohamud with a name and email address to facilitate the plot, according to the court documents.
In the months that followed, Mohamud allegedly made several unsuccessful attempts to contact his partner.
Ultimately, last June, an FBI undercover operative contacted Mohamud via email under the guise of being an associate of his Pakistani contact.
Mohamud and the FBI undercover operative then agreed to meet in Portland in July.
At this meeting, Mohamud told the FBI undercover operative that he had written articles that were published in "Jihad Recollections," an online magazine that advocated violence against non-Muslims.
He later told undercover FBI operatives that he had been thinking of conducting a holy war against infidels since the age of 15 and that he had identified a potential target for a bomb: the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square on Nov. 26, 2010, the documents allege.
He went ahead with the plot despite being given a number of opportunities to drop the idea, the FBI said. It said the affidavit against Mohamud quotes him as saying: "I want whoever is attending that event (in Portland) to leave, to leave either dead or injured."
The arrest came a day after Americans celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday amid heightened security.
Mohamud is expected to make his initial appearance in a federal court in Portland on Monday. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of the charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Federal officials said the public had never been in danger at any time during the operation.