The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is just blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood. And if you’re good boys and girls, you’ll remember that it was prominently used in Die Hard With A Vengeance. If you have not seen this film, stop right now and do that, then come back.
Anyway, someone attempted to blow it up, but the FBI instead made an arrest.
Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis is twenty-one years old and a Bangladeshi national. He came into the United States in January, and in the report filed by the FBI, had said he had overseas connections to al-Qaeda. He attempted to recruit a number of people into his cells.
One of them just so happened to be an FBI source. That he met online. With no verification that he was a legit jihadist.
Nafis had a number of targets in mind, including the New York Stock Exchange, before settling on the Federal Reserve Bank. In case you’re wondering, it holds about $415 Billion worth of gold, most of which are the property of foreign central banks that we protect at no cost.
Destruction of that could upset the global economy.
Anyway, the FBI says:
In a written statement intended to claim responsibility for the terrorist bombing of the Federal Reserve Bank on behalf of al-Qaeda, Nafis wrote that he wanted to ‘destroy America’ and that he believed the most efficient way to accomplish this goal was to target America’s economy.
Nafis “repeatedly asserted that the plan was his own” and was the reason he came to the United States.
The FBI undercover agent pretended to help him acquire 50-pound bags of what he thought were explosives but was in truth inert. At no time did the man have any access to explosive material.
Nafis will be charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaeda, the press release said.
Turns out the guy is the son of a bank manager back home, which has some odd implications, if not devastating for their non-extremist family.
Question: Are these guys getting… dumber? I don’t know what’s happening, here.
