Officials release video from sting operation involving bomb-plotting terrorist (VIDEO)


World News Videos | ABC World News

Video evidence collected from an operation in 2012 which resulted in the apprehension of a 29-year-old terrorist who plotted against the U.S., was recently released. The video showed communications between the suspect and who he believed to be al Qaeda associates.

Amine El-Khalifi had conceived a plan involving a suicide bomb and an automatic weapon to carry out an attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Let’s do it man, I don’t want to keep thinking about it too much. Let’s do it.” El-Khalifi said in a Washington, D.C. area hotel room, as he familiarized himself with a newly acquired MAC-10 just days before he planned the attack.

“It’s a striking moment,” said Assistant Director Andrew McCabe, head of the FBI field office in Washington, D.C. “Theme that you have to take away from seeing a tape like this is the understanding that these folks are out there.”

“It’s a significant problem,” McCabe said. “There is a population of young folks, largely young men, who connect with that extremist message. They are inspired by it.”

“I think it’s clear from the way he expresses himself what he’s committed to do and the actions that he took to get there,” McCabe said of El-Khalifi, who was a Moroccan citizen in the United States illegally.

Eventually, El-Khalifi pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and is now serving a 30-year sentence.

[ABC]

Read More On:

Latest Reviews

revolver barrel loading graphic

Loading