It seems that three men were conspiring to blow up Times Square using a car bomb and then shoot up the crowds at both concert venues and then subway cars at NYC during the summer 2016. This is in accordance with the indictment that a federal judge recently unsealed. One of these men was a Canadian that had been arrested previously and pled guilty to several charges, while the other two men—a U.S. citizen that had been living in country of Pakistan and a citizen from the Philippines—are awaiting trial while remaining in jail.
Joon H. Kim, the acting US Attorney from the Southern District of New York, recently announced that these men, Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, Russell Salic, and Talha Haroon had been arrested and charged with several terroristic crimes in addition to this hideous a plot to detonate bombs throughout Times Square and also throughout the subway system while Ramadan was happening.
They Got Suckered By The FBI
El Bahnasawy, who is a 19-year-old and a Canadian citizen, supposedly purchased bomb-making material while in Canada and then stupidly sent them to undercover FBI agents, who had also gotten a cabin that was located near New York City at his request. Prosecutors claim that the cabin was meant to be utilized as a hideout to manufacture bombs and to conduct practice shooting, instead this maniacal plot was disrupted before it could even get to this stage. Haroon, a not so bright 19-year-old United States citizen who had been living in Pakistan, was supposedly planning to meet with explosive experts to help them fine tune the attack because apparently they were unable to do it by themselves. Salic, the 37 year old Philippine citizen, apparently was financing the whole plot as he wired money from to these two guys from the Philippines.
These three men were believed to be electronically communicating throughout the spring of 2016 to plan this alleged conspiracy, and supposedly believed that they were going to conduct this attack on behalf of the terrorist group ISIS. El Bahnasawy supposedly told an undercover officer that they had hoped “create the next 9/11,” and Salic explained to this undercover officer “[i]t would be a great pleasure if we can slaughter” folks from New York.
These three men was talking about conducting several different attacks, which included setting off this car bomb at Times Square, because in order to “shoot up concerts cuz they kill a lot of people,” just like the Paris attackers did, and then to shoot as many people as possible who were on the subways. Haroon stupidly revealed to the undercover officer “I wanna kill . . . them in thousands” and that these attacks “will scar them for life knowing the soldiers of Allah are everywhere and ready… When we run out of bullets we let the vests go off.”
They Got Their Asses Arrested
Haroon and El Bahnasawy also explained to this undercover officer that they were declaring allegiance to ISIS, because they thought that he was linked to ISIS. El Bahnasawy moved from Canada to New York during May of 2016, and then was arrested on May 21st by the FBI in New Jersey. Haroon found himself arrested in October 2016 in Pakistan, while Saric got arrested in April 2017 in the Philippines and awaits extradition.
The main three charges carry a maximum term spending their lives in prison. We cannot wait to see them arrive there.
