Around the anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks last year, Ashiqul Alam voiced his admiration for their mastermind, Osama bin Laden, and said he wanted to carry on bin Laden’s legacy of violent extremism, court documents said.
“He did what he is supposed to do,” Alam, 22, said, according to a criminal complaint. “Now it’s up to us.”
That sentiment, expressed to an undercover law enforcement agent, kicked off a series of conversations about a potential terrorist attack in New York City that ultimately led to Alam’s arrest on Thursday, authorities said.
Alam, a green-card holder from Bangladesh who lives in Queens, was taken into custody after trying to buy two Glock pistols with defaced serial numbers from an undercover officer, officials said.
His arrest was the culmination of months of work involving three undercover agents and several law enforcement agencies, which had begun monitoring him in August, authorities said.
In meetings with undercover agents over 10 months, Alam discussed the possibility of carrying out suicide bombings in Washington, D.C., or in Times Square. He said he wanted to shoot police officers with AR-15 assault rifles and fire a rocket launcher at the new World Trade Center, the criminal complaint said.
Despite his intentions, he posed no immediate threat, officials said. The whole time, law enforcement was “monitoring his plans and intervening to prevent those plans from escalating into deadly violence,” Richard P. Donoghue, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
Two law enforcement officials, who asked that their names not be published because they were not authorised to discuss the case, characterised Alam’s statements as “aspirational.”
Alam was formally charged Friday in US District Court in Brooklyn with purchasing firearms with obliterated serial numbers. He was not charged with terrorism-related crimes.
Magistrate Judge Cheryl L Pollak ordered him permanently detained, citing the seriousness of the accusations.
Alam’s lawyer, James Darrow, of the Brooklyn federal defenders’ office, said before the hearing that he had no comment.
The investigation of Alam began last August, when he met with an undercover agent, the complaint said. Between the initial meeting and his arrest, he repeatedly stated his interest in buying weapons and explosives for a terrorist attack in New York City. He also expressed his admiration for terrorist groups, including ISIS and al-Qaida, the complaint said.
In September, for instance, he told an undercover agent that bin Laden’s violent, extremist mission during the Sept. 11 attacks was “a complete success,” according to the complaint.
Accompanied by an undercover agent, he conducted several “recon” trips to Times Square, using his mobile phone to make recordings of the area while scouting potential targets, the complaint said.
The reconnaissance was crucial, Alam told agents, because he would need to be prepared, the complaint said. “Like in a war,” he explained.
In January, while travelling to a shooting range, Alam told an undercover agent that he wanted “to die fighting,” according to the complaint. On their return trip, he said he wanted to buy a gun.
The same month, he said he would likely use that gun in an attack on Times Square, pointing specifically to Duffy Square, where tourists congregate around a red staircase and the TKTS booth, the complaint said.
In subsequent meetings, Alam continued to tell the agent that he wanted to purchase firearms, officials said.
At one point, in March, an undercover agent asked Alam what would make him happy, the complaint said. Alam responded, “Seeing the flag of Islam on the twin towers or the Empire State Building.”
The next month, Alam said he was getting Lasik eye surgery, justifying the procedure by referencing his hypothetical attack, according to the complaint. “Let’s say we are in an attack, right, say that my glasses fall off,” he said to an undercover agent. “What if I accidentally shoot you?”
“Imagine what the news channel would call me,” he added. “The ‘Looney Tunes Terrorist’ or the ‘Blind Terrorist.’”
Alam’s neighbours in the branching, seven-story apartment complex he called home in the Jackson Heights neighbourhood in Queens, described him as a standoffish young man who tried to project a powerful image.
Mohammed Islam, 18, said one thing that stuck out about Alam was his walk — a macho strut that projected aggression.
Otherwise, Alam was “very quiet,” Islam said. “Every time I saw him he was alone.”
Islam said he saw between 10 and 15 federal agents go into Alam’s fifth-floor apartment on Thursday. They were carrying guns and wearing vests, he said.
The agents came in and out of Alam’s apartment for around three hours, Islam said.
In 2017, a man detonated a pipe bomb in the crowded subway corridor that connects the busy Port Authority Bus Terminal to Times Square. The bomb blast terrified commuters but the only person seriously injured was the person who planted it.
The bomber, Akayed Ullah, who said he was inspired by the Islamic State group, was found guilty of federal terrorism charges last year.
Months prior, in May, a different man ploughed his car into Times Square’s crowded sidewalks, killing an 18-year-old woman and injuring 20 other people.
The driver, Richard Rojas, was charged with murder and attempted murder. He told a police officer that he had smoked marijuana laced with PCP, or angel dust, on the day of the deadly rampage, according to the criminal complaint against him.
In 2010, an attempted car-bombing in Times Square was stopped when a sidewalk vendor saw smoke coming out of an SUV and called police. The car, parked near Broadway, was packed with gasoline, propane, fireworks and fertiliser.
Police took the would-be bomber, Faisal Shahzad, into custody at Kennedy Airport, where he had boarded a flight to Dubai.
Shahzad pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in the case and was sentenced to life in prison. He told the court was a “proud” terrorist at his sentencing.
