FBI arrests Houston man who allegedly wanted to commit a ‘9/11’ style attack in the US
By Holmes Lybrand, CNN
(CNN) — The FBI announced on Thursday the arrest of a Texas man who allegedly created and disseminated ISIS propaganda and wanted to commit a “9/11-style” attack in the United States.
The man, Anas Said, was arrested last week outside of his apartment in Houston, Texas. His arraignment and detention hearing are set before a federal judge Thursday afternoon on the charge of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization.
Said told agents following his arrest that “he tried several times to travel to join ISIS and stated he would readily move back to Lebanon if he were released,” according to a detention memo filed in court by prosecutors. According to Houston’s FBI field office, he admitted to offering his home as a “safe sanctuary” to ISIS operators.
“He also discussed his efforts to commit violence in the United States, including considering purchasing a gun, researching military recruitment facilities, and scouting one specific location” in Houston, according to the memo.
Said told investigators he “considered asking military members that he would see near his work if they supported Israel or if they had been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq and killed Muslims there, and if they said yes, those are the persons he would kill,” the memo said.
CNN has reached out to Said’s attorney for comment.
According to court documents, the FBI has been aware of Said’s support of ISIS since 2017, when he ordered stickers related to ISIS. At the time, Said told agents that he started believing in ISIS’s ideology in 2015, following his returning to the US from Lebanon. Prosecutors say Said was born in Houston in 1996 but traveled “shortly thereafter” to Lebanon where he and his family lived until 2014.
In follow-up interviews, Said told the FBI he no longer consumed ISIS media and propaganda. But in late 2023 and into 2024, the FBI discovered that Said was using several Facebook accounts “to support ISIS and the violent attacks carried out in its name,” according to court documents.
Following his arrest, Said allegedly told investigators he researched locations, layouts and security measures at synagogues and the Israel Consulate in Houston and said that he intended to confront the head of an unnamed Jewish organization to stop funding Israel.
“If the head of the organization refused, then the Defendant would assault him/her,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.
In interviews with Said’s brother and mother, the two told investigators how he continued to consume ISIS propaganda and, according to his brother, “openly acknowledged that he wants to fight against and kill proponents of Israel.”
According to prosecutors, Said shared and created a significant amount of ISIS propaganda online and established an encrypted chat group for ISIS followers.
In one message that Said allegedly sent to an undercover FBI employee, Said wrote, “Brother, if I was living alone, you would have heard that I conducted an operation like 9/11. But my family is with me and I don’t want to put them in trouble.”
The-CNN-Wire
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