"The Justice Department today announced charges against a citizen of Afghanistan residing in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for conspiring to conduct an Election Day terrorist attack in the United States on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham... a designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO)," the release said on Tuesday.
Court documents reveal that Tawhedi entered the United States on September 9, 2021, on a special immigrant visa, days after the US completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan. He is currently on parole status pending adjudication of his immigration hearing.
FBI investigators searched Tawhedi’s phone and obtained communications between him and an IS-linked individual who appears to recruit, train, and indoctrinate people who expressed interest in terrorist activity, the release said, adding that Tawhedi also had other IS-related content saved on his iCloud and Google account.
In 2015, Human Rights Watch and an investigation by the outlet The Intercept revealed that the FBI often targets mentally disabled or financially struggling people, cultivating them and encouraging them to commit to a terrorist attack, and then arresting them and proclaiming that the bureau thwarted a terrorist plot.
On October 7, the 27-year-old Tawhedi was arrested by the FBI during an undercover operation and allegedly admitted to investigators that he was planning an attack on Election Day that would target large gatherings of people, according to the Justice Department.
The release said undercover FBI agents had posed as individuals who were meeting with Tawhedi and a juvenile at a rural location in Oklahoma to sell two AK-47 assault rifles, ten magazines, and 500 rounds of ammunition. FBI agents arrested Tawhedi and the juvenile who was with him as soon as they received the rifles and ammunition, the release said.
Tawhedi faces up to 35 years in prison for conspiring and attempting to provide material support to IS, and for receiving a firearm to be used to commit a felony or a federal crime of terrorism, the release noted.