An Afghan man was arrested in Oklahoma on suspicion of planning “terrorist attack” on the day of the Presidential Election, the US Justice Department announced yesterday (Tuesday).
Naseer Ahmad Tauhendi, 27, had settled in Oklahoma after arriving in the U.S. in 2021 on a special immigration visa. According to the indictment, he was planning a terrorist attack on behalf of the jihadist group Islamic State.
Up to 50 special immigrant visas are issued annually in the U.S. under a program for people who have worked for the U.S. armed forces or have been employed as translators/interpreters in Iraq or Afghanistan. The indictment did not specify whether Tauhendi had been employed as a translator or interpreter in Afghanistan.
Tauhendi sought information online about how to gain access to surveillance cameras in Washington, D.C., and which states do not require a permit to obtain a firearm, according to the indictment. He showed interest in the available images from cameras in the White House and Washington Monument area.
Tauhendi was arrested Monday with a minor accomplice, who is his brother-in-law, when they met FBI agents from whom they thought they were going to buy two AK-47 rifles and ammunition.
In his first statement after his arrest, Tauhendi said he planned to launch an attack on a gathered crowd and that he and his accomplice were determined to die as martyrs.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland assured that efforts will continue to combat the threat to U.S. national security represented by the jihadist group Islamic State and its supporters. “We will identify, investigate and prosecute those who seek to terrorize the American people,” he stressed in a statement.
