A U. S. veteran of the war in Afghanistan who prosecutors say plotted to detonate a nail bomb at a Los Angeles-area white nationalist rally, hoping to cause mass casualties, was arrested in an FBI sting operation, federal prosecutors said on Monday.
A U. S. veteran of the war in Afghanistan who prosecutors say plotted to detonate a nail bomb at a Los Angeles-area white nationalist rally, hoping to cause mass casualties, was arrested in an FBI sting operation, federal prosecutors said on Monday.
Mark Domingo, 26, a U. S. Army infantryman who fought in Afghanistan and recently converted to Islam, was taken into custody on Friday after being given what he thought was a live bomb to use in the attack by an FBI informant, law enforcement officials said.
“Often we are asked what keeps us up at night. This is a case that keeps us up at night,” Ryan Young, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, told a news conference in Los Angeles.
Domingo, who had purchased several hundred long nails to serve as shrapnel in an improvised explosive device, had also suggested attacks on Jews, police officers, churches, a military facility, Southern California freeways and the Santa Monica Pier during internet conversations with the informant, Young said.
