Portland bomb scare:
Mohamed Osman
Mohamud, Somali-
born US teen, arrested
for alleged blast try
The Associated Press
Saturday, November 27th 2010, 7:09 AM
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Undercover agents in a sting
operation stopped a Somali-born teenager from
blowing up a van full of explosives at a crowded
Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown
Portland, federal authorities said.
The bomb was a dud supplied by the agents and the
public was never in danger, authorities said.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:
40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that
he thought would set off the blast but instead
brought federal agents and police swooping down
on him.
Yelling "Allahu Akbar!" - Arabic for "God is great!" -
Mohamud tried to kick agents and police after he
was taken into custody, according to prosecutors.
"The threat was very real," said Arthur Balizan,
special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon. "Our
investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely
committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand
scale,"
The FBI affidavit that outlined the investigation
alleges that Mohamud planned the attack for
months, at one point mailing bomb components to
FBI operatives, whom he believed were assembling
the device.
It said Mohamud was warned several times about the
seriousness of his plan, that women and children
could be killed, and that he could back out, but he
told agents: "Since I was 15 I thought about all this;"
and "It's gonna be a fireworks show ... a spectacular
show."
Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in
Corvallis, was charged with attempted use of a
weapon of mass destruction and is scheduled for a
court appearance Monday. Few details were
available about him late Friday.
Authorities allowed the plot to proceed in order to
build up enough evidence to charge the suspect
with attempt.
Officials didn't say if the suspect had any ties to
other Americans recently accused of trying to carry
out attacks on U.S. soil, including alleged efforts in
May by a Pakistan-born man to set off a car bomb
near Times Square or another Pakistan-born
Virginia resident accused last month in a bomb plot
to kill commuters.
U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton released federal court
documents to The Associated Press and the
Oregonian newspaper that show the sting operation
began in June after an undercover agent learned that
Mohamud had been in regular e-mail contact with
an "unindicted associate" in Pakistan's northwest, a
frontier region where Al Qaida and Afghanistan's
Taliban insurgents are strong.
The two used coded language in which the FBI
believes Mohamud discussed traveling to Pakistan
to prepare for "violent jihad," the documents said.
