3 rural Illinois men charged in Minn. mosque bombing

CHICAGO — Federal authorities on Tuesday charged three men from rural central Illinois with the bombing of a Minnesota mosque last year and said one of the suspects told an investigator the goal of the attack was to “scare” Muslims out of the United States.

A statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in Springfield, Ill., says the men also are suspected in the attempted bombing of an abortion clinic in November.

The Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minn., was bombed just before morning prayers on Aug. 5, causing a fire and extensive damage, although no one was injured or killed. There was an attempted bombing of the Champaign, Ill., Women’s Health Practice on Nov. 7.

The three men are identified as Michael B. Hari, 47; Joe Morris, 22; and Michael McWhorter, 29. All are from Clarence, a rural community 35 miles north of Champaign-Urbana. A fourth man was charged with a gun offense, but he was not identified as a suspect in the bombing.

A complaint said a tip in December led authorities to investigate the three men after a person sent the local sheriff photos of guns and bomb-making material inside Hari’s parents’ home, where Hari often stayed. In January, a second informant told authorities that the three men had carried out the mosque bombing and the failed clinic bombing, according to the complaint.

McWhorter allegedly told an FBI agent during an interview that the three rented a pickup in Champaign and drove more than 500 miles to Minnesota with a plan to bomb the mosque, according to a criminal complaint. He said they wanted to let Muslims know they are not welcome in the United States and “scare them out of the country,” according to notes taken by the FBI.

It wasn’t clear why the men may have targeted a mosque so far from Illinois.

Morris told one informant that Hari had promised to pay him and McWhorter $18,000 for participating in the mosque bombing, according to the complaint. An affidavit says the men broke a window to the imam’s office and threw a pipe bomb containing black powder into the mosque. The pipe bomb exploded, causing a fire that was extinguished by sprinklers.