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A US ARMY veteran has been arrested after plotting to bomb a white supremacist rally in revenge for the New Zealand mosque attacks, prosecutors said last night.
Mark Domingo, who served in Afghanistan before converting to Islam, was arrested on Friday after authorities discovered his plan to plant homemade nail bombs at the rally in California.
The 26 year-old was arrested for providing material support to terrorists, while it was also alleged that he had been planning to “manufacture and use a weapon of mass destruction in order to commit mass murder”.
Attorney Nick Hanna told a news conference that Domingo supported jihad and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group if it established a presence in the US.
“This is a case in which law enforcement was able to identify a man consumed with hate and bent on mass murder, and stop him before he could carry out his attack,” he said.
“The criminal case outlines a chilling terrorism plot that developed over the past two months and targeted innocent Americans that he expected to gather this past weekend.”
Confidential source
Investigators said Domingo posted an online message in March that said “America needs another Vegas event”, an apparent reference to a mass shooting that killed 59 people in 2017.
He allegedly said it would spark civil unrest to weaken the US “by giving them a taste of the terror they gladly spread all over the world”.
However, he was caught after a confidential source who worked with the FBI began discussing his plans with him.
Domingo said he had an assault rifle, a semi-automatic rifle and several magazines of ammunition, and talked about attacking Jews walking to synagogue, shooting police officers or attacking a church or military base.
When the source asked him how he planned to carry out violence without getting caught, court records said Domingo replied: “Martyrdom, bro”.
He eventually decided to plant an improvised explosive device that could be remotely detonated at a white supremacist event, investigators said.
The confidential source then connected him with a purported bomb maker who was actually an undercover police officer.
Acted alone
If he survived the planned bombing, Domingo allegedly discussed launching further attacks on the Long Beach Port or on a train.
The plot was thwarted just two days ahead of the event, investigators said, when an FBI SWAT team arrested Domingo after he was given bomb parts and surveyed where the rally was supposed to happen.
He is believed to have acted alone and authorities said the public was not at risk.
After he was identified online by the FBI, he was under surveillance around the clock, said Ryan Young, the FBI special agent in charge of counter terrorism at the Los Angeles office.
“Our biggest fear is this was a rapid what we call ‘radicalization to mobilization to violence’,” Young said.
“Sometimes we get asked ‘What keeps you up at night?’ This is a case that keeps us up at night.”
With reporting from Associated Press.
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The article says “white supremacist” but the definition of what classifies a white supremacist has slipped over the years. Who knows if he was actually targeting white supremacists or just regular conservatives he labelled as such. It’s also ironic that they both hate Jews. We live in a weird world. If only the radicalised nutters could go at each other without innocent people being involved. Fair play to the FBI.
@Toomasu Sumitsu: the definition hasn’t changed, only people’s perception of what is acceptable as they forget history.
@The Guru: the terms racist, Nazi and white supremacist are often thrown around to describe anybody to the right of Bernie Sanders. They don’t even carry any weight anymore the looney left diluted their meaning so much.
Amazing that they never seem to be able to prevent the attacks of actual white supremacists despite living out their lives in plain site.
@Nicky O’Donnell:
That’s a strange comment
@Nicky O’Donnell:
That’s a strange comment
@Duncan: you can say that again!
@Nicky O’Donnell: Indeed a very strange comment!
26 year old veteran!! Did he join on his fifth birthday
@Garreth Mc Mahon: In the US if you served a tour of active duty and received an honorable discharge you meet the criteria for being a veteran
@Darren Tully: is honorable discharge a nice of saying thanks for letting us use you now piss off
The FBI have a dubious history of picking no-hopers and through ‘informants’ radicalising them further and providing them with money and material they would never have for themselves, then declaring they’d busted a major terrorist plot, when the whole thing was put together by the FBI. This story has echoes of that type of thing.
https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/
@Squiddley Diddley: Buy your tin foil hats in bulk do you?
@Kazoochka: It actually happens.
@Squiddley Diddley: For those naive enough to think this doesn’t happen, a Human Rights Watch report from the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School on the practice (It’s a pdf): http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/usterrorism0714_ForUpload_1_0.pdf
@Kazoochka: he provides sources??
@Squiddley Diddley: ur gonna get sheeple putting you down about your comments like ur man with the tinfoil hat comment. What ur saying has actual weight to it one read that article but I was wearing a tinfoil balaclava so it was in my eyes a bit :D
Somebody should really inform the FBI that now plays for Liverpool, westing the #3 shirt and goes by the name of Fabinho!!
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