You make the call. Afghan Accused of Election Day Terror Plot Worked for CIA. Was he going after Trump or Harris? The below article is a reprint from NewsMax.
An Afghan man accused of plotting a terror attack on Election Day previously worked as a security guard in Afghanistan for the CIA, NBC News reported Wednesday.
Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, was arrested on Monday in Oklahoma on charges of planning to kill American citizens on behalf of the terror group ISIS.
Court documents indicated that Tawhedi planned to attack on Nov. 5, Election Day, and he confirmed to authorities in an interview conducted after his arrest that he intended to target large gatherings of people and expected to die a martyr.
One senior administration official told NBC News that counterterrorism officials surmised that Tawhedi became radicalized while he was living in the United States. He entered the country in September 2021, according to court documents.
“Every Afghan resettled in the U.S. undergoes a rigorous screening and vetting process no matter which agency they worked with,” the official said. “That process includes checking against a full range of U.S. records and holdings.”
NBC News reported that Tawhedi passed two rounds of vetting with no derogatory information found and, according to a source, was first screened before he entered the U.S. on humanitarian parole.
Tawhedi was vetted again when he applied for a Special Immigrant Visa, for which he was eligible because he worked for the U.S. government. Although he was approved for the visa, an official told NBC News he had not yet completed it.
The Justice Department’s charging document said Tawhedi entered the U.S. on a Special Immigrant Visa “and is currently on parole status pending adjudication of his immigrant proceedings.”
But two U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter told NBC News that the charging document is incorrect and Tawhedi entered the U.S. on humanitarian parole, which usually entails much less rigorous vetting than a Special Immigrant Visa.
According to authorities, Tawhedi planned the attack with a juvenile co-conspirator, who was described as an Afghan national with legal permanent resident status.
The criminal complaint alleged that Tawhedi and his co-conspirator advertised the sale of the family’s personal property on Facebook before the planned attack. After a confidential FBI informant responded to inquire if a computer was still for sale, Tawhedi and the juvenile met with the source, who claimed he needed the computer for a new gun business he was starting.
Tawhedi and the juvenile were arrested Monday after meeting with the confidential informant and purchasing two AK-47 rifles, 10 magazines, and 500 rounds of ammunition.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., took to X on Wednesday to decry the Biden-Harris administration’s vetting process of the tens of thousands of Afghans who relocated to the U.S. following the withdrawal of American forces from the country in August 2021.
“Following the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, more than 77K Afghans were given humanitarian parole, with little to no vetting and no intent to know their whereabouts,” Johnson wrote. “Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi – the terrorist plotting an election day attack – was one of them.
“Whether it’s their open-border policies or failed foreign policy, this administration continues to risk American lives by allowing terrorists, murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals into our homeland.”
Tawhedi was charged with conspiring and attempting to provide material support to ISIS, which if he is convicted carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, and receiving a firearm to be used to commit a felony or a federal crime of terrorism, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.
