Targeting the Fed

Below is a TV news report about the plot by a young Bangladeshi named Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis to bomb the Federal Reserve Building in Manhattan. The fledging terrorist was foiled in his designs yesterday by an FBI sting:

Not only does this case have a Mohammed Coefficient of 100%, but the named neighbors of the arrested man also have an MC of 100%. Add to that the suspect’s landlord’s surname (“Islam”), and the fact that one of the TV reporters is a Muslim, and it all gets to be a little creepy.

To make matters even creepier, the landlord had a surveillance camera inside Mr. Nafis’ apartment — even though Mr. Islam claimed not to know the would-be bomber.

If I were a New Yorker, I’d be feeling a little paranoid by now. In fact, even though I’m hundreds of miles away from Manhattan in the middle of the Virginia outback, I’m still paranoid.

Below is a report from Fox News on the same topic:

Bangladeshi Man Arrested After Allegedly Trying to Blow Up Fed Building in NYC

Federal authorities arrested a Bangladeshi national Wednesday morning for allegedly plotting to blow up a Federal Reserve Bank in New York City’s lower Manhattan, mere blocks away from the site of the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001. The bank is one of 12 branches around the country.

The 21-year-old suspect, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, attempted to detonate what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb in front of the Fed building on Liberty Street, but the device was a fake supplied to him by undercover FBI agents who had been tracking his activity, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force said Wednesday afternoon.

The supposed explosives posed no threat to the public, the FBI said.

A criminal complaint accuses Nafis of having overseas connections to Al Qaeda and travelling to the U.S. in January to recruit individuals to form a terrorist cell and conduct an attack on American soil. But one of Nafis’ potential recruits was an FBI source, who alerted authorities, the FBI said.

A federal law enforcement official told Fox News that there was no evidence Nafis was directed by Al Qaeda to carry out this attack, though he appears to have thought he was working for the terrorist group.

At one point, according to criminal complaint, Nafis told undercover agents: “I don’t want something that’s like, small. I just want something big. Something 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.”

A U.S. official told Fox News that President Obama was Nafis’ first target, but the criminal complaint only refers to “a high-ranking official.” The complaint also mentions the New York Stock Exchange as a proposed target.

Also, here are excerpts from an article on the WBAP site (more video at the link):

Man Arrested for Alleged Plot to Attack Federal Reserve in NY

Authorities today arrested a “lone actor” who thought he was about to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City’s crowded Financial District on behalf of al Qaeda but instead discovered he was the target of a law enforcement sting.

Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, a Bangladeshi national, allegedly parked a van filled with what he believed to be 1,000 pounds of explosives outside the building in Lower Manhattan near the New York Stock Exchange, and was arrested after he tried to detonate the “bomb” with a cellphone. Officials say there was never any danger to the public.

Hat tips: For the video, Vlad Tepes; for the articles, Fjordman and sgtredbluered.