FBI arrested Farooque Ahmed, 34, a Pakistani national living in northern Virginia charged with plotting to bomb Washington D.C.'s public transit system.
An administration official said Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Pakistan, first drew the attention of law enforcement officials by seeking to obtain unspecified materials. He later became the target of an undercover sting operation, officials said.
34-year-old Farooque Ahmed readily handed over video of northern Virginia subway stations, suggested using rolling suitcases rather than backpacks to kill as many people as possible and offered to donate money to al-Qaida’s cause overseas.
The public never was in danger because FBI agents were aware of Ahmed’s activities and monitored him throughout, the agency said. And the people that Ahmed thought were al-Qaida operatives were actually individuals who worked on behalf of the government, according to a federal law enforcement official who requested anonymity to discuss details of the case.
Ahmed took video of four northern Virginia subway stations – Arlington Cemetery, Courthouse, Pentagon City and Crystal City, which is near the Pentagon – and monitored security at a hotel in the District of Columbia. In a series of meetings at hotels in northern Virginia, Ahmed provided the videos to someone he believed was part of a terrorist organization and said he wanted to donate $10,000 help the overseas fight and collect donations in a way that would not raise red flags.
_In a Sept. 28 meeting in a Herndon, Va. hotel, Ahmed also suggested that terror operatives use rolling suitcases to blow up the subway instead of backpacks. During that same meeting Ahmed said he wanted to kill as many military personnel as possible and suggested an additional attack on a Crystal City subway station.
The indictment alleges he also handed over diagrams of the Arlington subway stations and gave suggestions about where to put explosives on trains to kill the most people in simultaneous attacks planned for 2011.
Ahmed faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/27/farooque-ahmed-arrested-f_n_774841.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20020933-504083.html
Here is his linkedin profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/farooque-ahmed/a/795/ba0