Houston Man Arrested For Allegedly Plotting Terrorist Attack On US Soil
The FBI on Thursday confirmed the arrest of a Texas man who was allegedly planning an attack against the United States.
Anas Said, a 28-year-old man living in the Houston area, has been arrested for attempting to give material support to ISIS and plotting a terrorist attack from his home, FBI officials announced during a press conference. Said allegedly admitted to researching how to execute a terrorist attack on local military recruiting centers, offering his residence as a sanctuary to ISIS operatives, attempting to create terrorist propaganda and boasting about how he was willing to commit a Sept. 11-style attack if he had the capability.
“Today is a great day, we’ve taken a suspected terrorist off the streets of Houston,” stated Douglas Williams, special agent in charge of FBI Houston.
Said was arrested earlier in November at his apartment complex, prosecutors said, after FBI Houston’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) became aware that the 28-year-old was researching ways to commit “violent acts” on behalf of ISIS, a terrorist designated organization.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for further details from the Daily Caller News Foundation. Said’s immigration history, if any, is also not clear, as a spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was also not able to immediately respond to a request for comment.
News of Said’s arrest comes only weeks after the DOJ announced the arrest of Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, a 27-year-old Afghan national who was living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and was allegedly plotting an Election Day terrorist attack against the U.S. Tawhedi entered the country after the Biden-Harris administration’s botched military rollout of Afghanistan.
At least 99 individuals on the U.S. terrorist watchlist were released into the country between fiscal years 2021 and 2023 after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, according to a congressional report that was released in August.