United States/Terrorism: The Best Scenario

American authorities announced that on Wednesday, the FBI arrested a Bangladeshi national, aged 21, on charges of attempting to detonate a 450-kilogram bomb at the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, who arrived early in 2012 on a student visa, was arrested in southern Manhattan and charged with terrorism, added a source who requested anonymity. The indictment published by the New York Post reads like a spy novel. At the beginning of July, Nafis contacted a man attempting to start a Jihadist cell. Unfortunately for him, the man was an FBI source and he immediately contacted the authorities. Using the advice of those authorities, the source explained to Nafis that he knew a member of al-Qaida with access to the necessary explosives.

Over more than two months, an FBI agent gained his trust. “I just want something big. Something very big. Very very very very big, that will shake the whole country, that will make America, not one step ahead, change of policy, and make one step ahead, for the Muslims… that will make us one step closer to run the whole world,” Nafis explained. The young man continued on to say that he wanted to die “a martyr” in the suicide attack. When he asked to return to Bangladesh to “organize his affairs,” the FBI agent suggested another option, out of fear of losing him: set off the mechanism from a distance, so that he would be able to complete other attacks afterward.

After recording a video in which he explains he will act in the name of “[o]ur beloved Sheikh Osama bin Laden,” Nafis assembled the bomb with the help of the agent, who gave him an inert explosive. On Tuesday morning, Nafis tried to set off the bomb via telephone without success; then he was arrested by authorities.

The suspect will be charged with the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material to support al-Qaida, said the Justice department in a statement. Nafis arrived in the U.S. in January 2012 and had planned several targets for his attack, including the Wall Street Stock Exchange and a senior government official, which readers can find in the Justice Department’s document.