The Columbus Shopping Mall bombing plot was a plan to detonate an explosive in a shopping mall in the city of Columbus, Ohio, United States. The plot was disclosed by federal authorities on June 14, 2004, when an indictment against Nuradin Abdi was unsealed by the local United States District Court. Abdi was part of a clandestine cell of al-Qaeda which sought to bring "death and destruction to Columbus". [1]
Nuradin Abdi entered the United States as an asylum seeker from Somalia. [2] He lived in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood on the north side of Columbus. According to one report, Abdi flew to Ethiopia to train in a military-style training camp in January 2000. There, he allegedly was trained in the use of guns, bombs, and guerrilla warfare. [3] He returned two months later. Abdi met with Christopher Paul and Iyman Faris at a coffee shop in Upper Arlington on August 6, 2002. [4] According to Paul (who was awaiting trial for a separate plot to bomb European tourist resorts), Abdi first suggested shooting up a mall, to which Paul responded "That's a stupid idea". Abdi subsequently suggested bombing the mall, but few other details were released.
Abdi was arrested on November 28, 2003, and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda, and two counts of fraud and misuse of documents. [5] [6] His attorneys became concerned with his mental state, and he was sent to a federal medical center in Minnesota in June 2004 to undergo tests. [7] [8] He was returned to Columbus in August 2004 and held in the Franklin County Correctional Facility II. On July 31, 2007, Abdi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to support terrorists. [9] [10] The other charges against him were dismissed as part of a plea agreement. Abdi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and would be deported to Somalia upon completion of the sentence. [11]
New details released at the time of the plea agreement show that there were likely more than the aforementioned three people who were involved in the plot. Documents that were filed along with Abdi's agreement note a fourth person whom the trio met with both in Columbus and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
A 2011 NPR report claimed some of the people associated with this plot were imprisoned in a highly restrictive communications management unit. [12]
In 2012, it was reported that Abdi was deported back to Somalia. [13]
In 2001, a network of interconnected terrorist cells in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands was uncovered by law enforcement. The network had connections to al-Qaeda and was planning to commit one or more bombings.
Nazih Abdul-Hamed Nabih al-Ruqai'i, known by the alias Abu Anas al-Libi, was a Libyan under indictment in the United States for his part in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. He worked as a computer specialist for al-Qaeda. He was an ethnic Libyan, born in Tripoli.
Iyman Faris is a Pakistani citizen who served for months as a double agent for the FBI before pleading guilty in May 2003 of providing material support to Al Qaeda. A United States citizen since 1999, he had worked as a truck driver and lived in Columbus, Ohio. As of September 2003, Faris was the "only confessed al Qaeda sleeper caught on U.S. soil." In 2003 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for providing material support to Al-Qaeda. In February 2020 an American federal court revoked Faris' US citizenship. In August 2020, he was released from USP Marion in Illinois.
Yasin Hassan Omar is a British Somali convicted terrorist. Omar was arrested and tried for his involvement in the attempted 21 July attacks on London's public transport system. He was found guilty of attempting to detonate a device on the London Underground Victoria line tube train between Warren Street and Oxford Circus tube stations. In August 2005 police gave his age as 24 after his arrest.
The 2006 Ontario terrorism case is the plotting of a series of attacks against targets in Southern Ontario, Canada, and the June 2, 2006 counter-terrorism raids in and around the Greater Toronto Area that resulted in the arrest of 14 adults and 4 youths . These individuals have been characterized as having been inspired by al-Qaeda.
Mohammed Ali Dirie was one of 17 people connected to arrests on June 2 and June 3, 2006, in the 2006 Toronto terrorism arrests. He was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison. He was released in October 2011, left Canada in 2012, and reportedly died in 2013 fighting in the Syrian Civil War, although his death has not been conclusively verified.
The 2004 financial buildings plot was a plan led by Dhiren Barot to attack a number of targets in the U.S. and the United Kingdom which is believed to have been approved by al-Qaeda. The evidence against the plotters consisted of home videos, written notes, and files on computers. At the time of the arrests the group had no funding, vehicles, or access to bomb-making equipment.
Christopher Paul is an American al-Qaeda militant, who has pleaded guilty to acts of terrorism. According to public data search, he is due to released on May 22, 2024 from RRM Cincinnati.
On September 4, 2007, two men who were planning a terror attack were arrested along several others by Danish police officers and Security Intelligence Service agents in several coordinated actions throughout the Greater Copenhagen area. The two men were later convicted and sentenced to twelve and seven years in prison, respectively. In Danish, it became known as the "terror case from Glasvej" after the road where the convicted ringleader had his apartment, which had been under surveillance for an extended period of time before the arrests. It is unknown if the target of the planned bombing was in Denmark or abroad.
The Federal Correctional Institution, Terre Haute is a medium-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Indiana. It is part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute and is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility also has an adjacent satellite prison camp for minimum-security male offenders.
Born in Mogadishu, Somalia Mohammed Abdullah Warsame is a Canadian citizen who was arrested in 2003 by American police (FBI) in Minneapolis who accused him of attending an Afghan training camp and fighting alongside Taliban forces in the country, and charged him with conspiring to provide support to terrorists.
In the United States, a common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence in order to create a general climate of fear to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change. This article serves as a list and a compilation of acts of terrorism, attempts to commit acts of terrorism, and other such items which pertain to terrorist activities which are engaged in by non-state actors or spies who are acting in the interests of state actors or persons who are acting without the approval of foreign governments within the domestic borders of the United States.
Tarik Shah is an African American Muslim with a career as a professional jazz musician. As the sole student of Slam Stewart, Shah began playing the upright bass at age 12 and went on to play with Betty Carter, Ahmad Jamal, Abbey Lincoln and Art Taylor among others. He is a composer, a jazz educator, and lyricist. An expert in martial arts, Mr. Shah was arrested in May 2005 at the age of 42 in New York City, accused and eventually charged with providing aid for terrorist activity based on evidence from an FBI sting. He initially pled not guilty to all charges. After 31 months of solitary confinement, he was convinced a fair trial was unlikely given the Islamophobia following 9-11. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
According to the complaint, both also made a formal oath of loyalty, called a bayat, to al-Qaeda in a meeting with an undercover F.B.I. agent that was secretly recorded. An indictment handed up by a federal grand jury Monday accused the men of conspiring to provide material support for terrorism, specifically for al-Qaeda. It was less than a page long and added no details.
Bryant Neal Vinas is an American convicted of participating in and supporting al-Qaeda plots in Afghanistan and the U.S.
The 2009 New York City Subway and United Kingdom plot was a plan to bomb the New York City Subway as well as a target in the United Kingdom.
Najibullah Zazi is an Afghan-American who was arrested in September 2009 as part of the U.S. al Qaeda group accused of planning suicide bombings on the New York City Subway system, and who pleaded guilty as have two other defendants. U.S. prosecutors said Saleh al-Somali, al-Qaeda's head of external operations, and Rashid Rauf, an al-Qaeda operative, ordered the attack. Both were later killed in drone attacks.
On June 5, 2010, in a covert American anti-terrorism operation named "Operation Arabian Knight", two American citizens Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos "Omar" Eduardo Almonte, New Jersey residents, were arrested at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The men were in the process of boarding booked, separate flights to Egypt. According to the affidavit filed in support of the federal criminal complaint, they planned to travel to Somalia to join Al-Shabab, an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group recruiting foreigners for its civil war. They intended to join them in killing American troops in Somalia, although few Americans are stationed there. The two men were charged with conspiring to kill, maim, and kidnap people outside the U.S.
Failed terrorism plots are terrorist plots that have either been foiled, uncovered by authorities or failed through mistakes.
Zainab N. Ahmad is an American prosecutor with the United States Department of Justice who specializes in investigating and prosecuting terrorism. She served as an Assistant United States Attorney of the Eastern District of New York until 2017, successfully prosecuting several high-profile terrorism cases. In 2017, she was reassigned to the Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice team.