20-year-old Munther Omar Saleh of Queens was arrested last week and charged with plotting to set off a bomb in New York City on behalf of the Islamic State terror group, court documents revealed.
Saleh, a college student, told an undercover informant that he was in “Dar Al Harb” (Islamic house of war) and “trying to do an op” in New York City. He later revealed that “dawlah” (ISIS) officials told him “not to talk to anyone” while he was in the final stages of plotting the terror operation, the FBI complaint alleges.
In the moments before his arrest, Saleh and an unidentified co-conspirator armed with a Smith & Wesson tactical knife attempted to storm at officers in an undercover police car, the complaint against the ISIS terrorist says.
“An investigation by the JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force) has revealed that Saleh espouses violent jihadist beliefs and is a fervent supporter of the foreign terrorist organization [ISIS]” court documents read.
Saleh also “offered assistance” to ISIS by translating their propaganda materials into English “for dissemination to English-speaking persons,” the court documents reveal.
The aspiring jihadi was enrolled in a Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in Queens, where he was taking a class in electrical circuitry, investigators said.
On May 5th, he tweeted his support for the jihadist attacks on a free speech event in Garland, Texas, which was hosted by anti-jIhad activist Pamela Geller. “May Allah accept them as martyr,” Saleh allegedly said of the ISIS-inspired terrorists, who were shot dead by police before they could commit mass-murder on the event’s attendees, which included multiple journalists with Breitbart News.
A couple days later, Saleh would search the internet for a “Special Operations Forces combat assault rifle, a combat tomahawk, a ranger-series fixed blade knife, and a tactical knife,” the complaint alleges.
Uncovered on his computer were instructions on how to make a pressure-cooker bomb (the same device that was set off by Boston Marathon jihadis Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev). The ISIS-supporting individual also frequently used search engines to find tips on how to avoid police surveillance.
Saleh continues to be held without bail since Saturday. The FBI complaint also says that the aspiring terrorist acquired the support of two unidentified co conspirators
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