A Somali man has been charged with plotting to bomb an Ohio shopping mall, the type of vulnerable target in the American heartland that US officials have warned that terrorists want to strike.
The four-count grand jury indictment unsealed on Monday in Columbus, Ohio, alleges Nuradin Abdi conspired with Iyman Faris, a convicted al-Qaeda operative who sought to sabotage the Brooklyn Bridge, and others to detonate explosives at an unidentified mall in the Columbus area.
The alleged conspiracy began shortly after Abdi, 32, returned in March 2000 from training camps in Ethiopia to "ready himself to participate in violent jihadi conflicts" overseas and in the US, the government charged in court papers. Jihad is the Arabic word for holy struggle.
Abdi, who operated a small cellphone business, was arrested at his Columbus apartment by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Nov. 28. He had been under surveillance for months and initially was held on immigration violations, authorities said.
FBI officials and prosecutors in Ohio said no specific mall was targeted and there was no imminent threat of an attack when Abdi was arrested.
"The point here is that this plot was foiled while it was still in the planning stages," assistant US attorney Bill Hunt said at a news conference in Cincinnati.
Charges in the indictment, originally returned Thursday but kept secret until Monday, include providing material support to al-Qaeda, conspiracy to provide material support and document fraud. If convicted on all charges, Abdi could be sentenced to a maximum of 80 years in prison.
Abdi's 17-year-old brother, Mohamed AbdiKarani, said his brother loved the freedom of the US and never spoke out against the US government. Abdi has a son and daughter and his wife is pregnant, his brother said.
"He really hated terrorists," AbdiKarani said. "He loved it here. He never had as much freedom. He said it's good to raise his kids here."
AbdiKarani said Abdi was friends with Faris because they attended the same mosque. Columbus is home to more than 30,000 Somalis, the second-largest Somali community in the US, after Minneapolis.
Faris is serving a 20-year federal sentence after pleading guilty last June to providing material support to al-Qaeda. Faris, an Ohio-based truck driver originally from Kashmir, admitted plotting to sever the cables supporting the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and to derail trains in New York or Washington.
According to US immigration records, Abdi first entered the US in 1995, lived for a time in Ontario, Canada, and then returned to the US in August 1997. Abdi was granted asylum in the US as a refugee in January 1999 after giving false information to immigration officials, the government charges.
Later that year, he used that refugee status to apply for a travel document by falsely claiming he was planning to visit Germany and the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
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