Afghan national arrested for plotting ISIS-inspired Election Day terrorist attack

The FBI arrested a man from Afghanistan who was allegedly planning an Election Day terrorist attack in the US, Report informs via CBS News.

Federal prosecutors charged Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi with planning the attack in support of ISIS. He was arrested Monday in Oklahoma City. According to court records, he made his initial appearance in federal court Tuesday, but did not enter a plea. He remains in custody.

According to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday, Tawhedi and unnamed co-conspirators — including a juvenile who is Tawhedi's brother-in-law — were followers of ISIS and took steps to carry out their attack in the US, including by trying to sell their family home, relocate their families abroad and purchase firearms and ammunition.

"Their ultimate aim was to stage a violent attack in the United States in the name of and on behalf of ISIS," prosecutors wrote.

Twenty-seven-year-old Tawhedi traveled to the US on a Special Immigrant Visa in September 2021, days after the US withdrew from Afghanistan, and the criminal complaint said he is "currently on parole status pending adjudication of his immigration proceedings." The US offers Special Immigrant Visas to individuals who worked with the US armed forces or under chief of mission authority as a translator or interpreter in either Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the State Department.

Electronic records accessed by the FBI showed Tawhedi allegedly viewed ISIS propaganda and contributed about $540 in cryptocurrency to a charity in Syria "which fronts for and funnels money to ISIS."

Federal investigators allege Tawhedi searched for access to surveillance and security cameras in Washington, D.C., and checked webcams showing the White House and Washington Monument in late July. They also believe Tawhedi was seeking out places in which gun laws were more lax.

Federal investigators said they sent a confidential human source and later an undercover FBI agent to secretly interact with the men as they sought to sell their home and other possessions on Facebook and purchase weapons.