The FBI arrested a man from Afghanistan who was allegedly planning an Election Day terrorist attack in the U.S.
Federal prosecutors charged Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi with planning the attack in support of ISIS. He was arrested Monday in Oklahoma City. According to court records, he made his initial appearance in federal court Tuesday, but did not enter a plea. He remains in custody.
According to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday, Tawhedi and unnamed co-conspirators — including a juvenile who is Tawhedi’s brother-in-law — were followers of ISIS and took steps to carry out their attack in the U.S., including by trying to sell their family home, relocate their families abroad and purchase firearms and ammunition.
“Their ultimate aim was to stage a violent attack in the United States in the name of and on behalf of ISIS,” prosecutors wrote.
Twenty-seven-year-old Tawhedi traveled to the U.S. on a Special Immigrant Visa in September 2021, days after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, and the criminal complaint said he is “currently on parole status pending adjudication of his immigration proceedings.”
The U.S. offers Special Immigrant Visas to individuals who worked with the U.S. armed forces or under chief of mission authority as a translator or interpreter in either Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the State Department.
Electronic records accessed by the FBI showed Tawhedi allegedly viewed ISIS propaganda and contributed about $540 in cryptocurrency to a charity in Syria “which fronts for and funnels money to ISIS.”
Federal investigators allege Tawhedi searched for access to surveillance and security cameras in Washington, D.C., and checked webcams showing the White House and Washington Monument in late July. They also believe Tawhedi was seeking out places in which gun laws were more lax.
Federal investigators said they sent a confidential human source and later an undercover FBI agent to secretly interact with the men as they sought to sell their home and other possessions on Facebook and purchase weapons.
In a Sept. 21 message to a person allegedly associated with terrorist activity, Tawhedi said he had purchased two kalashnikov rifles and ordered 500 bullets.
“What do you think, brother? Is it enough or should we increase it,” the Telegram message said.
In subsequent messages, Tawhedi said his father-in-law’s house had sold for $185,000, and they would receive the funds by Oct. 15. He also asked for help in resettling his family, which included his mother-in-law, wife, their young daughter and five of his wife’s siblings, in Afghanistan. Tawhedi purchased one-way plane tickets for the family to travel to Kabul on Oct. 17.
“After that we will begin our duty, God willing, with the help of God, we will get ready for the election day,” Tawhedi wrote.
