Wednesday, the FBI arrested 21-year-old Hasher Jallal Taheb in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia on the grounds that he was planning an attack on the White House. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
On Aug. 25, 2018, Taheb allegedly put his vehicle up for sale to fund a trip. An FBI informant reached out to show interest and met with the suspect days later.
Taheb allegedly said he planned to travel to “hijra,” a term said to refer to Islamic State territory.
He also told the informant he wanted to attack the White House and Statue of Liberty in jihadist attacks, authorities said. At the beginning of December, Taheb arranged a meeting with the informant and an undercover FBI agent, the complaint said.
“Taheb explained that jihad was an obligation, that he wanted to do as much damage as possible, and that he expected to be a ‘martyr,’” the complaint said…
The attack on the White House was supposed to involve driving on a road behind the building, creating a diversion and shooting a hole through the building to gain entry and kill people, the complaint said.
Last week Taheb told undercover FBI agents he was ready to attack the White House and wanted to exchange his car for weapons. Wednesday he met with the agents who offered him a cache of weapons including a rocket launcher which is apparently what he planned to use to shoot a hole into the White House. Unbeknownst to Taheb, all of the weapons had been rendered non-functional. When he accepted the weapons he was arrested.
The FBI busted up a similar plan for a terror attack by a lone radical last summer. Abdur Raheem Rahfeeq wanted to attack the city of Cleveland and possibly also Philadelphia. He made the mistake of talking about his plans on Facebook which is how the FBI got involved in that case.
Here’s a local news report about Taheb. The home the FBI is searching in this clip looks pretty nice. Did he live there with his parents? Were they the ones who gave the tip about his radicalization?
