Terror plot on NYC foiled

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Bloomberg

Associated Press

NEW YORK

An “al-Qaida sympathizer” who plotted to bomb police and post offices in New York City as well as U.S. troops returning home has been arrested on numerous terrorism-related charges, city officials said Sunday night.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced at a news conference the arrest of Jose Pimentel of Manhattan, “a 27-year-old al-Qaida sympathizer” who the mayor said was motivated by terrorist propaganda and resentment of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The mayor said Pimentel, a U.S. citizen originally from the Dominican Republic, was “plotting to bomb police patrol cars and also postal facilities as well as targeted members of our armed services returning from abroad.”

He was under surveillance by New York police who were working with a confidential informant and was in the process of building a bomb; no injury to anyone or damage to property is alleged, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. In addition, authorities have no evidence that Pimentel was working with anyone else, the mayor said.

“He appears to be a total lone wolf,” the mayor said. “He was not part of a larger conspiracy emanating from abroad.”

Instead, Bloomberg said, Pimentel represents the type of threat FBI Director Robert Mueller has warned about as U.S. forces erode the ability of terrorists to carry out large scale attacks.

Pimentel, also known as Muhammad Yusuf, is accused of having an explosive substance Saturday when he was arrested that he planned to use against others and property to terrorize the public.

The charges accuse him of conspiracy going back at least to October 2010.