Kansas man accused of plotting to attack troops
He hoped to be ‘killed in jihad’ by bombing a U.S. Army base, prosecutors say.
A 20-year-old Kansas man who once allegedly tried to join the U.S. Army so that he could kill American soldiers was arrested Friday and charged in a plot to bomb Ft. Riley, Kan., on behalf of Islamic State, federal prosecutors said.
John Booker, also known as Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, believed he and one other man were going to detonate a suicide bomb at the Army base near Manhattan, Kan., but he was arrested without incident as part of a months-long FBI investigation.
“We face a continued threat from individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of causes,” U.S. Atty. Barry Grissom said. “Anyone who seeks to harm this nation and its people will be brought to justice.”
Booker, a Topeka resident, had spent months plotting with two confidential informants who he believed would support his mission to join Islamic State or commit an attack on U.S. soil, according to the criminal complaint.
He believed the informants had helped him gather 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate to plant a bomb in a truck they would drive to Ft. Riley, home to the 1st Infantry Division. But the bomb components were inert.
The FBI became aware of Booker in March 2014 when he published Facebook posts expressing his desire to “wage jihad.” The FBI became aware of the posts just weeks after Booker contacted a U.S. Army recruiter in Kansas City, Mo.
He was supposed to report for basic training in April, the complaint said.
“Getting ready to be killed in jihad is a HUGE adrenaline rush!! I am so nervous,” Booker wrote on Facebook, according to the complaint. “NOT because I’m scared to die but I am eager to meet my lord.”
FBI agents contacted him days later, and Booker immediately told them he had been inspired by Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas, in 2009, to “commit an insider attack against American soldiers.”
“Booker stated that if he went overseas and was told to kill a fellow Muslim, he would rather turn around and shoot the person giving orders,” the complaint said.
During those initial interviews, Booker told the FBI agents he planned to open fire on officers during basic training and wanted to kill as many high-ranking army officers as possible, the complaint said.
Booker was denied entry into the Army, but again expressed an interest in committing a terrorist attack when he was contacted by a confidential informant in October 2014, according to the complaint. They discussed ways for Booker to travel overseas to fight alongside Islamic State militants in the Middle East, but the informant challenged Booker to prove he was “ready to fight.”
Booker told the informant he would be willing to attack U.S. soldiers with a gun or grenade in the Ft. Riley area, or capture a high-ranking military member and force him to confirm Islamic State’s presence in the U.S. in a propaganda video, the complaint said. Booker also filmed propaganda videos in which he threatened the families of U.S. soldiers in the weeks before his arrest, according to the complaint.
“From inside, whether it be in their homes, whether it be on a base like this, whether it be in the recruiting stations, whether it be in the streets … we are coming for them and we seek their blood,” Booker said, according to the complaint.