Undercover FBI agent thwarts ISIL New York attacks

Three ISIL sympathisers planned to cause bloodshed at New York City concert venues, subway stations and in Times Square before US agents thwarted the international plot, authorities said on Friday.

One of the defendants, Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, was arrested after travelling from Canada to New Jersey in May last year to stage the attacks.

The capture of the Canadian citizen followed an investigation involving an undercover FBI agent posing as an Islamic extremist that also led to the arrests last year of US citizen Talha Haroon in Pakistan and Russell Salic in the Philippines, where he is a citizen.

According to criminal complaints, El Bahnasawy, 19, sent the undercover agent an image of Times Square with a message saying: “We seriously need to car bomb Times Square. Look at these crowds of people!”

In another, he expressed a desire to “shoot up concerts cuz they kill a lot people. We just walk in with guns in our hands. That’s how Paris guys did it,” the papers said in an apparent reference to the killings by men armed with assault weapons at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris during a performance of the rock group Eagles of Death Metal in 2015.

The criminal complaints, unsealed on Friday, did not name the New York venues.

The undercover agent and El Bahnasawy also were in communication with the 19-yearold Haroon, who wanted to join El Bahnasawy in New York City for the attacks, authorities said.

Haroon, who at one point met an explosives expert in Pakistan for information on building bombs, told the undercover agent the subway was a “perfect” place to shoot passengers and that “when we run out of bullets we let the vests go off”, the court papers said.

After Haroon talked about what was needed to build explosives, El Bahnasawy bought 18 kilograms of hydrogen peroxide, batteries, Christmas lights, thermometers and other ingredients they thought were needed to build homemade bombs, authorities said.

He shipped the material to the undercover agent in the United States, where he and Haroon planned to use a cabin in a rural area within driving distance of the city to build bombs and practice shooting, they said.

Salic, 37, is accused of sending money to fund the attacks, court papers said. He told the undercover agent his goal was

One ISIL sympathiser expressed a desire to “shoot up concerts cuz they kill a lot people”

to join ISIL in Syria and “it would be a great pleasure if we can slaughter” people in New York, the papers said.

El Bahnasawy pleaded guilty in October last year but the case was sealed while the investigation continued.

Haroon and Salic were awaiting extradition overseas.

All three men face charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it assisted the FBI in the investigation. “At no time was the safety or security of the public at risk,” it said.