The FBI logo on an agent’s shirt in the Manhattan district of New York City (REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File)
He FBI announced this Thursday the arrest of a man in Houston (Texas) for allegedly planning an attack in the United States on behalf of the terrorist group Islamic State (ISISfor its acronym in English).
Anas Said, 28 years old, was arrested in his apartment last week and authorities accuse him of having been looking for ways to commit “violent actions” in the name of the ISIS in Houston, the state’s largest city, according to the local FBI office.
The prosecutor’s office for the Southern District of Texas filed criminal charges against him for “attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization.”
Authorities said Said admitted to having been “researching how to carry out an attack on local military recruiting centers,” offering his home as a “sanctuary” for people affiliated with ISIS, and claiming he would commit a crime. attack like 9/11 If I had the resources.
In turn, the FBI office in Houston reported in a series of posts on Platform X, Said “attempted to generate propaganda” for ISIS.
The accused recorded and edited “at least five videos” that promoted and glorified ISIS, according to the prosecutor for the Southern District of Texas, Alamdar Hamdaniin a press conference.
The authorities had the man in their sights since 2017, according to local media, due to his activity on social networks and violent comments in favor of ISIS.
ISIS has long waged an online propaganda and recruitment war. (Reuters)
Last Friday, the United States Department of Justice accused a man linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard of hatching a plan to assassinate then-Republican candidate Donald Trump before the election.
In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland explained that the Iranian regime tasked the defendant “with leading a network of criminal associates to further Iranian assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.”
The main accused is Farhad Shakeri51, described in the lawsuit as an Afghan living in Tehran who spent a decade in jail in New York, where he met his associates, before being deported – he is now believed to be in Iran – and who is a member “asset” of the Revolutionary Guard.
The Department of Justice assures that Shakeri voluntarily participated in a telephone conversation with the FBI, to whom he assured that on October 7 he was tasked with preparing a plan to kill Donald Trump the following week, but that he never thought about preparing that plan. “in the time frame proposed by the Revolutionary Guard”, without this contradiction being very clear.
If Shakeri did not have that plan ready by then, as he claimed he did, the Iranian militia would pause its mission until after the elections because they believed that Trump would lose them and that “later it would be easier” to kill him, he adds.
The FBI arrested an alleged ISIS member who was planning a terrorist attack in the US
The accusation comes after the Trump campaign said in September that US intelligence officials had warned the then-candidate “about real and specific threats by Iran with the aim of assassinating him.”
“There are few actors in the world that pose as serious a threat to the national security of the United States as Iran,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement. “We will not tolerate the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people,” he added.
Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, stated: “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a designated foreign terrorist organization — has been conspiring with criminals and hitmen to attack and eliminate Americans on American soil, and that will not be tolerated. Thanks to the hard work of the FBI, their deadly plans were thwarted.”
(With information from EFE, AFP, and Europa Press)
