RECENT TERROR STINGS
Oct. 2012: Prosecutors accuse Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, a 21-year-old Bangladeshi man, of conspiring to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, saying that he tried to detonate what he believed was a 1,000-pound bomb in a van he parked outside the building. But the plot was monitored by authorities as it unfolded.
Feb. 2012: Amine El Khalifi is accused of plotting to detonate a bomb inside the U.S. Capitol. But in the operation monitored by the FBI, the explosives were inert, the gun inoperable and the man who provided them was an undercover officer.
Nov. 2010: Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-born teenager, attempts to detonate what he believed was a car bomb at a packed Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Ore. But the bomb was a fake, planted by authorities who had spent nearly six months tracking the youth.
Sept. 2009: Hosam Smadi, 19, is arrested after placing a fake bomb at a 60-story Dallas skyscraper. Smadi acknowledged leaving what he thought was a truck bomb in a garage beneath the building. The device was a decoy provided by FBI agents posing as al-Qaida operatives.
News services
A Kansas man who prosecutors say sympathized with terrorists was arrested Friday as part of an FBI sting after he drove a vehicle loaded with what he thought were explosives to a Wichita airport.
Authorities said the planned assault by Terry Lee Loewen at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport was aimed at supporting al-Qaida.
Loewen, a 58-year-old avionics technician who worked at the airport for Hawker Beechcraft, was arrested before dawn as he tried to drive into the tarmac. The materials in the car were inert, and no one at the airport was in any immediate danger, authorities said.
Loewen, who lives in Wichita, had been under investigation for about six months after making online statements about wanting to commit “violent jihad” against the United States, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said.
Eventually, an undercover FBI agent befriended Loewen, striking up conversations about terrorism and Loewen’s admiration for those who plotted violence against American interests.
Authorities said Loewen spent months studying the layout of the airport, its flight patterns and other details to maximize fatalities and damage in an attack.
During that time, he developed a plan with other conspirators to use his employee access card to pull off the attack. The conspirators were actually undercover FBI agents.
Loewen planned to die in the explosion, a fate that he said was inevitable in his quest to become a martyr in a jihad against America, according to court documents.
Authorities said they believe Loewen acted alone. No other arrests were expected.
Loewen made an initial court appearance Friday afternoon, answering “yes” in a strong voice to various procedural questions. A U.S. magistrate ordered that Loewen remain jailed at least until a hearing next Friday.
His wife and attorney declined comment after the hearing.
The case appears to be similar to a string of cases in the law enforcement world of post-9/11, where wide use of FBI sting operations has prompted frequent controversy over balancing the needs of law enforcement and civil liberties.
Critics of the tactics — defense attorneys and civil liberties groups — say the FBI is engaging in systematic violations of peoples’ constitutional rights by luring targets into committing crimes. The FBI, in turn, says the stings are a vital law enforcement tool that has averted potentially deadly terrorist attacks.
In Loewen’s case, court documents that he talked about downloading documents about jihad, martyrdom and an al-Qaida “manual” during his online conversations.
In August, an undercover agent offered to introduce Loewen to someone who could help him engage in jihad. A few days later, he mentioned providing a “tour” of the airport for one of the undercover agents.
In September, the undercover agent told Loewen he had returned from overseas after meeting with individuals connected with al-Qaida. The agent told him the “brothers” were excited to hear about his access to the airport and asked Loewen if he would be willing to plant some type of device, according to court documents.
“Wow! That’s some heavy stuff you just laid down. Am I interested? Yes. I still need time to think about it, but I can’t imagine anything short of arrest stopping me,” Loewen told the agent, adding that he needed to let Allah guide him.
The documents allege that he also asked for reassurances that he wasn’t being set up, saying his greatest fear was not completing the operation.
The criminal complaint also details a meeting in November with other undercover agents in which they discussed executing the plan prior to Christmas in order to cause the greatest physical and economic damage.
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