Jose Pimentel | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 8, 1984 |
| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | American |
| Known for | Arrested for allegedly plotting to bomb New York City |
| Criminal charge(s) | 3 counts of terrorism-related crimes and two other counts |
| Children | 1 [1] |
Jose Pimentel (born November 8, 1984 [2] ), also known as Muhammad Yusuf, is a naturalized U.S. citizen arrested on November 20, 2011, by the New York City Police Department for allegedly plotting to bomb New York City. [3]
Pimentel is originally from the Dominican Republic and moved to the United States when he was five years old. [2] In 2004, he moved to Schenectady, New York, to attend college and converted to Islam that same year. In December 2005, he was arrested for buying a computer with stolen credit card information he got while working at a Circuit City in Albany, New York. [2]
Pimentel's alleged targets included U.S. troops returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. [4] Pimentel is reported to have shown theological interest in Anwar al-Awlaki, posting at least fifteen video clips of the extremist cleric to his YouTube account and posting materials from Awlaki and other terrorists on his website, trueislam1.com. [5] [6] After his arrest, information surfaced that the FBI had declined to get involved in the case as they thought Pimentel was incapable of successfully executing the attack and was merely mentally unstable. [7] The Huffington Post reported that Pimentel smoked marijuana with the NYPD's cooperating informant in the case, and was likely high when making some of the incriminating statements recorded by police. [8] Police outlets claim that he was planning to change his name to Osama Hussein to celebrate his heroes Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, though these claims have been heavily disputed by members of the Hamilton Heights community. [2]
Shahawar Matin Siraj is a Pakistani-American who was convicted in 2006 of terrorism conspiracy, regarding a plot to bomb a New York City Subway station in Manhattan. Siraj worked at an Islamic bookstore in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Over a period of several months in 2004 he was recorded by an FBI informer Osama Eldawoody regarding a plot to plant a bomb in the 34th Street–Herald Square station. According to the New York City Police Department, Siraj was "extremely impressionable due to severe intellectual limitations" and never actually agreed to carry out an attack. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in January 2007.
The Liberty City Seven were seven construction workers and members of a small Miami, Florida-based religious group who called themselves the Universal Divine Saviors. Described as a "bizarre cult," the seven were arrested and charged with terrorism-related offenses in 2006 by a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting investigation although their actual operational capability was extremely low and their intentions were unclear. The members of the group operated out of a small warehouse in the Miami neighborhood of Liberty City.
Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki was an American-Yemeni Islamic scholar, lecturer, and jihadist who was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki became the first U.S. citizen to be targeted and killed by a drone strike from the U.S. government. U.S. government officials have stated that al-Awlaki was a key organizer for the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda.
Osama Eldawoody is a US citizen with a self-proclaimed nuclear engineering degree who has worked as a paid New York City Police Department informant to work undercover in Mosques in the New York metropolitan area. In 2004, his work broke up an alleged terrorist plot by Shahawar Matin Siraj and James Elshafay to blow up the 34th Street–Herald Square station of the New York City Subway, and the Macy's Herald Square Department Store, one of the largest in the world. Court documents and statements from Siraj were inconsistent with Eldawoody's testimony. However, in both instances, his methodology were reported to include entrapping the potential "terrorists" with aggressive and misleading tactics. Some have claimed he created the terrorist plots himself to entrap young and vulnerable people in order to get the FBI and NYPD payments and recognition, and that there were no credible terrorist threats to begin with.
The 2007 Fort Dix attack plot involved a group of six radicalized individuals who were found guilty of conspiring to stage an attack against U.S. Military personnel stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
The 2007 John F. Kennedy International Airport attack plot was an alleged Islamist terrorist plot to blow up a system of jet fuel supply tanks and pipelines that feed fuel to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in Queens, New York. These pipelines travel throughout the undergrounds of New York City in densely populated areas. The alleged plot was foiled when an undercover law enforcement official was recruited to the homegrown terrorist cell.
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.
On May 20, 2009, US law enforcement arrested four men in connection with a fake plot concocted by a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant to shoot down military airplanes flying out of an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York, and blow up two synagogues in the Riverdale community of the Bronx using weapons supplied by the FBI. The group was led by Shahed Hussain, a Pakistani criminal who was working for the FBI to avoid deportation for having defrauded the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. Hussain has never been charged in the United States with any terrorism related offenses and was paid nearly US$100,000 by the FBI for his work on this plot.
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 2009 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.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab popularly referred to as the "Underwear Bomber" or "Christmas Bomber", is a Nigerian terrorist who, at the age of 23, attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, US on 25 December 2009.
On May 1, 2010, a terrorist attack was attempted in Times Square in Manhattan, New York, United States. Two street vendors alerted NYPD after they spotted smoke coming from a vehicle, and a car bomb was discovered. The bomb had been ignited, but failed to explode, and was disarmed before it caused any casualties. Two days later, federal agents arrested Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistan-born resident of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who had become a U.S. citizen in April 2009. He was arrested after he had boarded Emirates Flight 202 to Dubai at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He admitted attempting the car bombing and said that he had trained at a Pakistani terrorist training camp, according to U.S. officials.
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.
Anwar al-Awlaki was an American-Yemeni cleric killed in late 2011, who was identified in 2009 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a known, important "senior recruiter for al Qaeda", and a spiritual motivator.
At around 9:30 pm on September 11, 2001, George Tenet, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) told President George W. Bush and U.S. senior officials that the CIA's Counterterrorism Center had determined that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible for the September 11 attacks. Two weeks after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation connected the hijackers to al-Qaeda, a militant Salafist Islamist multi-national organization. In a number of video, audio, interview and printed statements, senior members of al-Qaeda have also asserted responsibility for organizing the September 11 attacks.
The 2011 Manhattan terrorism plot was a conspiracy by two Muslim Arab-Americans to bomb various targets in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, United States. They had planned to attack an unspecified synagogue and one of them expressed interest in blowing up a church and the Empire State Building. New York City law enforcement arrested the two suspects, 26-year-old Ahmed Ferhani and 20-year-old Mohamed Mamdouh, in a sting operation on May 11, 2011. Their plot was motivated primarily by "hatred of infidels and anti-semitism" according to the authorities.
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. The 1,336 lb (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to make North Tower collapse onto the South Tower, taking down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. While it failed to do so, it killed six people, including a pregnant woman, and caused over a thousand injuries. About 50,000 people were evacuated from the buildings that day.
Ralph Kenneth Deleon is a Filipino, and legal permanent resident of the United States, who in 2015 was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder of members of the United States military and government, and providing material support for terrorists. Deleon is serving a 25-year sentence.
