The San Francisco office of the FBI posted a press release this afternoon announcing that a San Jose, California man had been arrested this morning for attempting to blow up a Bank of America building in Oakland, California.
28 year old Matthew Aaron Llaneza was charged with “attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against property used
in an activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce.” The arrest is the outcome of an undercover operation conducted by the FBI’s South Bay Joint Terrorism Task Force that began late last year.
Among other things, Llaneza was hoping to trigger a civil war, according to the affidavit mentioned in the FBI press release.
According to the affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint,
on November 30, 2012, Llaneza met with a man who led him to believe he
was connected with the Taliban and the mujahidin in Afghanistan. In
reality, this man was an undercover FBI agent. At this initial meeting,
Llaneza proposed conducting a car-bomb attack against a bank in the San
Francisco Bay Area. He proposed structuring the attack to make it appear
that the responsible party was an umbrella organization for a loose
collection of anti-government militias and their sympathizers. Llaneza’s
stated goal was to trigger a governmental crackdown, which he expected
would trigger a right-wing counter-response against the government
followed by, he hoped, civil war.The complaint further alleges that Llaneza subsequently selected the
Bank of America branch at 303 Hegenberger Road in Oakland as the target
for the attack. Llaneza ultimately specified a spot next to a support
column of the bank building as a good location for the bomb, expressed a
desire for the bomb to bring down the entire bank building, and offered
to drive the car bomb to the bank at the time of the attack.
This story is developing. Breitbart News will continue to follow it as new information is available.
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