The FBI apprehended a man from Afghanistan who was allegedly preparing an election-day terrorist attack in the US.
Federal prosecutors have charged Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi with preparing an attack in support of ISIS. Federal prosecutors arrested him in Oklahoma City on Monday. According to court documents, he made his first appearance in federal court on Tuesday but did not enter a plea. He is still in custody.
Tawhedi and unnamed co-conspirators, including a juvenile who is Tawhedi’s brother-in-law, were ISIS supporters who attempted to carry out their attack in the United States. This included selling their family home, relocating their families abroad, and purchasing firearms and ammunition, according to a federal criminal complaint that was unsealed Tuesday.
“Their ultimate aim was to stage a violent attack in the United States in the name of and on behalf of ISIS,” the attorneys said.
Tawhedi, 27, arrived in the United States on a Special Immigrant Visa in September 2021, days after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan. According to the criminal complaint, he is “currently on parole status pending adjudication of his immigration proceedings.” According to the State Department, people who worked as translators or interpreters for the United States armed forces or under chiefs of mission authority in Iraq or Afghanistan are eligible for special immigrant visas.
According to FBI-accessible electronic documents, Tawhedi allegedly saw ISIS propaganda and donated $540 in cryptocurrencies to a charity in Syria “which fronts for and funnels money to ISIS.”
According to federal authorities, Tawhedi sought access to surveillance and security cameras in Washington, D.C., as well as webcams at the White House and Washington Monument in late July. They also suspect Tawhedi was looking for areas where firearms rules were more relaxed.
Federal investigators reported that they deployed a confidential human source and an undercover FBI agent to discreetly contact the men who were attempting to sell their home and other items on Facebook in order to obtain guns.
Tawhedi stated in a message to a person reportedly involved in terrorist activity on September 21 that he had purchased two Kalashnikov firearms and 500 rounds of ammunition.
“What are you thinking, brother? Is it enough, or should we increase it?” the Telegram message asked.
In later communications, Tawhedi stated that his father-in-law’s house had sold for $185,000 and that they would receive the monies by October 15. He also requested assistance in resettling his family, which included his mother-in-law, wife, their little daughter, and five of his wife’s siblings, in Afghanistan. Tawhedi ordered one-way aircraft tickets for the family’s trip to Kabul on October 17.
“After that, we will begin our duty; God willing, with the help of God, we will get ready for the election day,” Tawhedi stated in a letter.
The criminal complaint states that Tawhedi and his brother-in-law acquired two AK-47 rifles on Monday, shortly before their arrest.
Tawhedi informed detectives during a post-arrest interview that they had bought the weapons to launch an attack on Election Day and target big crowds, during which they “expected to be martyred,” according to the complaint.
FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed his pride in the men and women of the FBI for uncovering and stopping the plot before any harm occurred in a statement.
Merrick Garland, the attorney general, stated: “We will continue to combat the ongoing threat that ISIS and its supporters pose to America’s national security, and we will identify, investigate, and prosecute the individuals who seek to terrorize the American people.”
National security and intelligence officials have been warning for months about an increasingly complicated and hazardous threat landscape. “The terrorism threat has escalated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has elevated the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole new level,” Wray told Congress a year ago.
