New York police arrested a 27-year-old man they called a “lone wolf” militant on charges of plotting to build bombs to kill US soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Jose Pimentel, a follower of late Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, was arraigned on Sunday night in state court on terrorism-related charges.
A US citizen born in the Dominican Republic, Pimentel was arrested on Saturday in a Manhattan apartment while assembling a bomb, police said.
“We had to act quickly because he was in fact putting this bomb together,” New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
Pimentel admitted he “took active steps to build the bomb, including shaving the match heads and drilling holes in the pipes” and that he was “one hour away from completing it,” the criminal complaint filed by the Manhattan District Attorney said.
Authorities called him a “lone wolf,” who had converted to Islam and became a radical.
Pimentel, who has not been charged in US federal court, faces life in prison if convicted.
He was under surveillance since May 2009 and considered New York police cars, a New Jersey police station and a US post office among his potential targets, officials said.
As a reader of the online magazine Inspire, published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Pimentel took instructions from an article, “How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,” Kelly said.
“We think an event that really set him off was the elimination of Anwar al-Awlaki,” Kelly said. “His actions became a lot more intense after Sept. 30.”
A US drone strike killed al-Awlaki, a US citizen, in Yemen in late September, ending a two-year hunt. US intelligence called him the “chief of external operations” for al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch and an Internet-savvy propagandist.
Kelly said Pimentel “talked about changing his name to Osama Hussein to celebrate his heroes Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.”
He also talked about killing US military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the complaint said.
It said a police informant recorded meetings with Pimentel over several months and accompanied him as he bought materials for the bomb, including a drill and a clock.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, New York has considered itself a prime target and has developed extensive intelligence and counterterrorism divisions that employ 1,000 officers within the police department.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the Pimentel case the 14th plot against the city since 2001. Most of these have been deemed “aspirational.” Some, however, such as the failed attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square in May last year, were closer to being carried out.
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