Talk about a threat from within, and just days after 9/11. It’s a good thing our law enforcement is on top of this:
(CBS/AP) CHICAGO – FBI agents have arrested a man they say planned to set off a car bomb outside a bar in downtown Chicago.
Federal prosecutors say 18-year-old Adel Daoud was arrested Friday night in an undercover operation in which agents pretending to be extremists provided him with a phony car bomb.
The U.S. District Attorney’s Office in Chicago said in a news release Saturday the device was inert and the public was never at risk.
Daoud is a U.S. citizen from the Chicago suburb of Hillside.
He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to damage and destroy a building with an explosive.
A federal official told CBS News that Daoud was just out of high school and had become radicalized though the Internet.
Federal prosecutors say the FBI began monitoring him after he posted material online about violent jihad and the killing of Americans.
UPDATE: Fox News adds more details:
They also said the arrest was the “culmination of a rigorous undercover operation” during which Daoud developed an attack plans that included picking a target and conducting surveillance on it.
Daoud started posting the material in October 2011, and agents first made contact with him in May 2012.
Daoud faces a statutory maximum sentence of life in prison for attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and a potential maximum of 20 years in prison for attempt to damage or destroy a building by means of an explosive, if found guilty.