Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis. Photo: NY Dailynews
The
FBI on Wednesday arrested a Bangladeshi man in a sting operation on
charges of plotting to blow up the Federal Reserve building, housing the
US central bank, in Manhattan of New York.Twenty one-year-old Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis travelled to the US in January of 2012 with the intent of planning a terrorist attack, reports BBC Online quoting the FBI.
Denying the allegations against Nafis, his father, QM Ahsan Ullah, said Nafis was not involved in any activities other than study and he used to spend most of his pastimes on his personal computer.
Ahsan said he had last talked to Nafis on his cellphone at 10:00pm (Bangladesh time) when he said he was going to attend his classes.
Nafis made his first overseas trip this January, he told The Daily Star over phone.
The address of their residence is 107/4, Uttar Jatrabari in Dhaka and their village home is at Khashiyani under Gopalganj Sadar upazila.
Ahsan is a senior vice-principal of National Bank Limited who is now serving as manager of the Imamganj Branch of the bank in capital's Moulvibazar.
His mother, Rokeya Siddique, is a housewife.
Between the two children, Nafis, born in 1991, is the youngest son. His elder sister Fariel Bilkis is a lecturer at Dr Sirajul Islam Medical College.
Nafis completed his SSC from Motijheel Ideal School in 2006 and HSC from Dhaka College in 2008.
After that he completed 6 semesters of his BBA degree at North South University and later got admitted to Southeast University of Missouri in the US. Here he completed one semester.
He got admission to ASA College under State University of Missouri pursuing a bachelor's degree in cyber security.
Nafis was doing a part-time job at a hotel in Jamaica of Queens, family sources said.
Nafis faces charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al Qaeda, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. If convicted, he faces life in prison, reports Reuters.
Nafis was arrested Wednesday morning after he parked a van filled with what he believed were explosives outside the Federal Reserve building, just blocks from the World Trade Center site, and tried to detonate it in a suicide mission, authorities said.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama had been briefed about the arrest.
He allegedly attempted to detonate what he thought was a 1,000lb (454kg) bomb.
The Bangladeshi native reported having overseas connections to al-Qaeda, travelled to the US in January to carry out an attack, according to a complaint filed in federal court in Brooklyn, reports AP.
He also recorded a videotaped statement in which he said, "We will not stop until we attain victory or martyrdom," federal prosecutors said.
Authorities said Nafis proposed several spots for his attack, including the New York Stock Exchange and a high-ranking government official, whom the US official identified as Obama, - and that in a written letter taking responsibility for the Federal Reserve job he was about to carry out, he said he wanted to "destroy America."
He was trying to recruit people, but one was a secret FBI source, and Nafis was closely monitored as he tried to act out his plot.
There was never a threat, the FBI said, as Nafis had been closely watched.
One of the people he contacted turned out to be a source working for the FBI, US federal prosecutors said.
Nafis was placed under surveillance, and the undercover FBI agent sold him 20 bags of what he thought were 50lb of explosives. The suspect then bought and assembled detonators and timing devices.
Officials said there had never been any actual threat.
"Attempting to destroy a landmark building and kill or maim untold numbers of innocent bystanders is about as serious as the imagination can conjure," said Mary Galligan, FBI acting assistant director-in-charge. "The defendant faces appropriately severe consequences."
The arrest is the latest in a series of so-called sting operations run by the FBI and anti-terror authorities in the US.
In an initial appearance in federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday, Nafis wore a plain brown crew-neck T-shirt, dark-coloured jeans and sneakers. He barely spoke during the brief hearing, mumbling answers of "yes" to questions from US Magistrate Judge Roanne Mann.
He was ordered to be held without bail and did not enter a plea. His defence attorney had no comment outside court.
After reaching New York in January, he claimed to be in contact with al Qaeda members overseas, although federal agents found no evidence that he was working for al Qaeda or that he was directed by the organisation, according to a US official who declined to be named.
Nafis was living in Queens.
The Federal Reserve Bank in New York, located at 33 Liberty Street, is one of 12 branches around the country that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, make up the Federal Reserve System that serves as the central bank of the United States. It sets interest rates.
RECRUITS
To create a cell to help him carry out the bombing, Nafis began to seek out recruits, eventually bringing on board an undercover agent working for the FBI.
The two met on Wednesday morning and travelled by van to a New York warehouse, where Nafis assembled what he thought was a 1,000 pound bomb, before driving to the Federal Reserve Bank, among the most secure and guarded buildings in Manhattan.
After parking near the bank, Nafis walked to a nearby hotel and recorded a video statement in which he said, "We will not stop until we attain victory or martyrdom," according to the FBI.
Nafis was arrested in the hotel as he repeatedly attempted to detonate the inert bomb, the FBI said.
New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, whose department was part of the operation, objected to suggestions that Nafis' plans were crude and bumbling.
"I don't see how you characterise (him as) unsophisticated, I mean he was arrested, but he clearly had the intent to create mayhem here," Kelly told reporters.
Other FBI sting operations this year have netted at least one foreign suspect, as well as some from the United States.
In February, a 29-year-old Moroccan man was arrested near the US Capitol wearing a vest he believed was full of al Qaeda-supplied explosives, and charged in an attempted suicide bombing of Congress.
Five self-described anarchists in the Cleveland area were arrested in May and accused of plotting to blow up a four-lane highway bridge. An undercover FBI agent had sold the men inoperable detonators and plastic explosives.
HIS TRAIL
The defendant had sought assurances from an undercover agent posing as an al-Qaeda contact that the terrorist group would support the operation.
"The thing that I want to do, ask you about, is that, the thing I'm doing, it's under al-Qaeda?" he was recorded saying during a meeting in bugged hotel room in Queens, according to the complaint.
In a September meeting in the same hotel room, Nafis "confirmed he was ready to kill himself during the course of the attack, but indicated he wanted to return to Bangladesh to see his family one last time to set his affairs in order," the complaint said.
But there was no allegation that Nafis actually received training or direction from the terrorist group.
Prosecutors say Nafis travelled to the US on a student visa in January to carry out an attack.
In July, he contacted a confidential informant, telling him he wanted to form a terror cell, the criminal complaint said.
In further conversations, authorities said Nafis proposed several spots for his attack. Other communications took place through Facebook, the complaint said.
A Twitter account with the suspect's name and photo had six followers and two messages and was linked to a Facebook page that had been taken down.
Nafis attended Southeast Missouri State University during the spring semester, which ran from January to May, university spokeswoman Ann Hayes told the Southeast Missourian newspaper. He was pursuing a bachelor's degree in cybersecurity.
Hayes said Nafis requested a transfer of his records in July and the university complied, though she couldn't say where the records were transferred.
On Wednesday, federal officials were at the New York home where Nafis was staying, a red brick building in the Jamaica neighbourhood of Queens.
Owner Rafiqul Islam said Nafis was staying with his second-floor tenants, and he was told he was related to the family. The tenants didn't answer their door and their apartment was dark.
Islam said Nafis had only lived there about a month or so.
"I didn't notice anything, he spoke to me very quietly," he said. "He said he was going to be studying here."
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the case is one more reminder that New York remains a target.
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