Terrorism whithin the United States: The Middle East connection

In October 2009, Tarek Mehanna was arrested and indicted in a plot involving several Boston-area men who had repeatedly attempted to receive terror training overseas; and repeatedly denied entry, they finally turned their attention to a potential domestic terror attack inspired by the D.C. snipers. One of Mehanna’s associates, Ahmad Abousamra, who fled the United States for Syria in 2006 after being questioned by the FBI, was named as a co-conspirator in the case. According to the indictment, and based on the testimony of a cooperating witness, prosecutors allege that Mehanna and Abousamra had discussed training in foreign terrorist camps even prior to the September 11 attacks. Abousamra actually traveled to Pakistan in April and November 2002 attempting to join Lashkar-e-Taiba and Taliban camps, but was rebuffed by the first because he was of Arabic origin, not Pakistani, and later by the Taliban because he did not have enough experience. Abousamra would later enter Iraq in 2004 and meet up with insurgents there who refused to let him fight because he was an American.[40]

Unsuccessful in those attempts, the group turned their attention to waging jihad in the United States. The plan they initially discussed was to obtain automatic weapons and launch an attack at a shopping mall intending to kill shoppers and first responders. The plotters actually attempted to purchase the automatic weapons, but when their source could only provide handguns, the plan was abandoned.[41] Their would-be source for weapons was none other than Daniel Maldonado, who mentioned earlier had been captured fighting with al-Shabaab forces on the Somali-Kenyan border, and who was later convicted in a U.S. court and sentenced to 10 years in prison for fighting with the al-Qa’ida-linked group.[42]