Rezwan Ferdaus of Massachussetts was arrested with 25 pounds of C-4 plastic explosive he'd obtained as part of his plot to use large remote controlled aircraft to attack the US Capitol and the Pentagon.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 61752.htmlQuote:
WASHINGTON—Federal authorities said they arrested and charged a 26-year-old Massachusetts man with plotting an attack on the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon using large, remote-controlled aircraft filled with explosives.
The Justice Department said it also charged Rezwan Ferdaus, a U.S. citizen who graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in physics, with attempting to provide al Qaeda with resources to attack American soldiers overseas. An attorney for Mr. Ferdaus couldn't immediately be identified.
Federal authorities said the public was never in danger because undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were monitoring Mr. Ferdaus as the investigation evolved. In early 2010, FBI agents posing as members of or recruiters for al Qaeda received phones from Mr. Ferdaus that he had modified to trigger improvised explosive devices, according to the government.
Mr. Ferdaus believed the devices would be used to kill American soldiers overseas, the Justice Department said. During a June 2011 meeting, he appeared gratified when he was told his first phone detonation device had killed three U.S. soldiers and injured four or five others in Iraq, the Justice Department said. Mr. Ferdaus responded, "That was exactly what I wanted," according to government documents.
In the meantime, Mr. Ferdaus was planning attacks on Washington buildings, the government said. In conversations with an unidentified witness, Mr. Ferdaus said he planned to attack the Pentagon with remote-controlled aircraft similar to small drone airplanes filled with explosives, the Justice Department said.
By April, he had expanded his plan to include an attack on the U.S. Capitol and in May, he traveled to Washington from Boston to identify sites at East Potomac Park, a public park near the Capitol, from which to launch his aircraft, the government said. Between May and September, he acquired the necessary parts, including an F-86 Sabre remote-controlled aircraft, the government said. The aircraft was delivered to a storage facility in Framingham, Mass., in August, the Justice Department said.
In the meantime, Mr. Ferdaus was still working with people he believed to be the al Qaeda representatives but who were in fact undercover FBI agents, the government said. Mr. Ferdaus last week made a training video that he provided to the undercover FBI agents demonstrating how to make "cell phone detonators," the government said.
The US Department of Justice is being cited as confirming in a press release that Mr. Ferdaus is a Muslim. Curiously, the DoJ website does not list this press release at the current time.
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