Vet Who Converted to Islam Charged With Plotting Terror Attacks

Federal law enforcement officials announced on Monday that a U.S. Army vet who recently converted to Islam was arrested late last week in California for allegedly planning terror attacks in Los Angeles.

The suspect was arrested on Friday “after he received what he thought was a bomb, but was actually an inert device supplied to him by an undercover law enforcement officer, federal officials said,” CBS Los Angeles reported.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that, according to a federal affidavit, the suspect considered “various attacks — including targeting Jews, churches, and police officers” and ultimately “decided to detonate an IED at a rally scheduled to take place in Long Beach this past weekend. As part of the plot, [the suspect] asked his confederate — who actually was cooperating with the FBI as part of the investigation — to find a bomb-maker, and [the suspect] last week purchased several hundred nails to be used as shrapnel inside the IED.”

The Washington Times noted that the suspect posted an “online video professing his Muslim faith on March 2 and the next day said in a post that ‘America needs another vegas event,’ referring to the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, that would give ‘them a taste of the terror they gladly spread all over the world.'”

Investigators say that they believe the suspect was “a recent convert to Islam who…was seeking revenge for the March massacres at two New Zealand mosques that killed 50 people,” The Washington Post reported. (Read more from “Vet Who Converted to Islam Charged With Plotting L.A. Terror Attacks” HERE)

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