FBI arrests college student on terror charges

February 25, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON

The FBI has arrested a young Saudi citizen in Texas who was purportedly amassing bomb components for a string of attacks on a dozen hydroelectric and reservoir dams in California and Colorado and former President George W. Bush’s home in Dallas, which he disparaged as the “Tyrant’s House.”

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, who attended a small college near Lubbock, Texas, and kept a detailed journal outlining plans for a string of attacks, was charged with attempting to build and use a weapon of mass destruction.

Aldawsari described nuclear power plants as “NICE TARGETS” and collected the names and home addresses of three former U.S. military officers from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where prisoners were tortured and humiliated, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed Thursday.

The 20-year-old Aldawsari described on his “fromfaraway90” blog his journey to the Texas panhandle on a financial scholarship and student visa, “providing me with the support I need for Jihad,” the FBI said.

Mark White, an FBI special agent in Dallas, said in a telephone interview authorities do not believe he was sent here by al-Qaida or another terror organization, nor do they believe he was radicalized by foreign terrorists or a local mosque once he arrived in the U.S. in September 2008.

“We do not see him associated to anybody, and we are not looking for anyone else at this point,” White said. “But,” he emphasized, “this was not just some kid who thought he would get some chemicals. This guy was training, and he knew what was needed to create a bomb. He had the capability to do it and had already bought sulfuric and nitric acids. This guy was moving along.”

Aldawsari fits the “lone wolf” profile seen in recent months of would-be terrorists who blended into communities in Baltimore, Washington D.C., and Portland, Ore.

He attended Texas Tech University, then switched this semester to the smaller South Plains College at Levelland, Texas, and took up chemical-engineering classes.

But though the other loners were tripped up by FBI informants or undercover agents, Aldawsari’s arrest can be tied back to a Feb. 1 telephone call from a company in Burlington, N.C.

Jim Parrish, president and CEO of the Carolina Biological Supply Co., said that in late January, Aldawsari attempted to purchase phenol, a chemical routinely used in college-level organic chemistry classes. “One day after shipping the product we became aware that the order was suspicious,” he said. “We immediately notified the FBI and ordered the product returned to us.”