Two Broward men charged in plot to blow up local armory, utility plants
llebowitz@herald.com
Federal authorities Friday charged two Muslim men from Broward County with plotting an armed jihad that would have included the bombing of several South Florida electrical substations and a National Guard armory.
The purported leader, Imran Mandhai, 19, a student at Broward Community College, has been in U.S. Immigration and Natrualization Service detention since Feb. 13. Mandhai is a Pakistani national living with his parents in Hollywood.
His accomplice, Shueyb Mossa Jokhan, 23, who works at an American Express processing facility in Plantation, was arrested at his Hollywood home without incident this morning by FBI agents.
Jokhan is a naturalized American who was raised in Trinidad and Tobago, which has one of the largest concentrations of Muslims in the Caribbean.
The indictment unsealed this morning alleges Mandhai was seeking funding to acquire AK-47 rifles, night-vision equipment, stun guns, pepper spray, smoke grenades and train for an armed organized ''jihad'' against the United States.
The goverment says Mandhai and Jokhan plotted to bomb Florida Power electric substations in Miami Shores and near Miami International Airport and a National Guard Armory in Hollywood as a precursor to a list of demands they intended to place on the U.S. and other governments around the world.
Mandhai and Jokhan both attended a Broward mosque but the ''jihad'' did not appear to be connected in any way to Osama bin Laden or the al-Quaeda operatives who perpetrated the suicide hijacking missions of Sept. 11.
