A suspected terrorist parked a van packed with what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb next to the Federal Reserve building in Lower Manhattan and tried to detonate it Wednesday morning before he was arrested in a terror sting operation, authorities said.
The suspect, 21-year-old Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, is a Bangladeshi national who came to the U.S. on a student visa in January for the specific purpose of launching a terror attack here, authorities said. He allegedly told an undercover agent last month that he hoped the attack would disrupt the presidential election, saying “You know what, this election might even stop,” according to the criminal complaint against him.
He also proposed various other targets beyond the Fed building at 33 Liberty St., just blocks from the World Trade Center site, prosecutors said. He considered targeting a “high-ranking U.S. official” as well as the New York Stock Exchange.
Nafis, who lives in Jamaica, Queens, allegedly sought out al-Qaida contacts to help him, unknowingly recruiting an FBI source in the process. At that point, the FBI and NYPD began monitoring him as he developed the plot, prosecutors said.
An undercover FBI agent posed as an al-Qaida facilitator, supplying him with 20 50-pound bags of what he thought were explosives to use in building his bomb. Nafis also visited the Lower Manhattan site multiple times as he planned the attack, officials said.
The complaint said he told an agent in July that he wanted “something very big … that will shake the whole country.”
Prosecutors say Nafis met the agent Wednesday morning and put the bomb inside a van before driving to the Fed building, assembling the detonator while he drove.
The pair parked the van by the Fed, got out and walked to a hotel, where Nafis covered his face, put on sunglasses and recorded a video statement he meant to be released after the attack. He then tried to detonate the bomb through a cell phone detonator, officials said.
Law enforcement officials stress that the plot was a sting operation monitored by the FBI and NYPD and the public was never at risk. The materials he believed were explosives had been rendered inoperable, officials said.
We were never at the slightest risk from this bomb “threat.”. It was monitored by the FBI all along. It’s unlikely this doofus could have ever hatched a plot on his own. But at least he’s off the streets.
I was there one week ago on my way to and from meetings. In general there is a good deal of police presence. Could have been Has v’shalom a disaster
we share the world………..
big thank you to the NYPD and the govt for keeping such tabs on these poeple. Moshiach now!
ANOTHER SICKO MUSLIM!! LIFE IN JAIL NOT ENOUGH
Another genius Muslim extremist with seven or eight IQ points to his name.
I hope he gets sentenced to at least five times his IQ as a deterrent to his buddies back home in Kakastan.
Baruch Hashem! May Hashem continually watch over us through his appointed messengers.
Loads of mazal were in place here. A Groyserer Yasherin Kochacha to these 2 Homeland Security Departments for monitoring this individual and diffusing what could have been another 9-12. Excellent work maties.