A 19-year-old Pakistani-American man allegedly planned to execute deadly attacks in New York City on behalf of the Islamic State terrorist organization and wanted to motivate others to launch similar offensives, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said on Friday.
Awais Chudhary was charged with attempting to provide material support to Islamic State and Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in a federal court ordered him held without bail. Chudhury wanted to “record the bloodshed in the hope of inspiring others to commit attacks”, federal prosecutor Richard Donoghue said.
Chudary was detained on Thursday when he went to an online vendor’s retail outlet to pick up the gear he had ordered to record his planned attacks.
City Police Commissioner James O’Neill said: “Awais Chudhary had accepted the call from IS to kill fellow New Yorkers.”
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Before he was arrested by the New York Police’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Chudhary “had carefully planned, conducted reconnaissance, picked a target, and was in the process of obtaining the weapon” and “all he has left to do was to strike”, O’Neill said.
According to court documents, Chudhary was unmasked by undercover law enforcement personnel with whom he shared his plans via text messages to conduct stabbing or bombing attacks on behalf of the IS and suggested targets including the World’s Fair Marina.
“Chudhary also had picked several pedestrian overpasses on a major road from where he wanted to throw bombs,” the complaint said. He also sent an undercover agent a screenshot of an IS terror manual on places to strike and the “ideal knife” use, with instructions on how to stab a victim, court papers said.
This is not the first time Pakistani or Bangladeshi descent or people with ties to Pakistan targeting the city on behalf of terrorist groups or attempting to join them.
