A family member Afghan citizens accused of plotting terror attacks on Election Day Oklahoma has been accused of plotting to attack a French football game or a shopping mall in France on Saturday, according to the anti-terrorism prosecutor's office in Paris.
Both Afghans are believed to have wanted to carry out operations for ISIS, officials said. It is not known whether they planned to coordinate their attacks on the United States and France.
French authorities said the Afghan accused was 22 years old, but declined to name him. They also did not identify two other men who were detained in police custody in France for questioning and released.
Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, an Afghan man arrested in Oklahoma on October 7, is accused of planning a violent attack in the name of ISIS with an assault rifle on November 5, the day Americans go to the polls. Court documents say Tawhedi made contributions to an ISIS charity in March and accessed ISIS propaganda online.
Two sources with knowledge on the subject later told NBC News that Tawhedi worked as a security guard in Afghanistan for the CIA. Court documents say Tawhedi entered the United States in September 2021, about a month after the chaotic withdrawal of American military forces from Afghanistan.
Former President Donald Trump accused the Biden administration of failing to adequately vet Afghans. A senior Biden administration official Said Tawhedi was examined twice, but no incriminating information was found.
“Every Afghan resettled in the United States goes through a rigorous screening and vetting process, regardless of the agency they work with,” the official said. “This process includes checks of the full range of U.S. records and collections.”
A conspiracy in France
French law enforcement authorities told NBC News they opened a preliminary investigation into a possible terrorist plot in France on September 27. On October 8, the day after Tawhedi was arrested in Oklahoma, the anonymous 22-year-old Afghan man and two other men were arrested in the cities of Toulouse and Fronton in the Haut-Garonne region where they live in southwestern France.
“Investigations revealed the existence of a planned violent act against people in a football stadium or in a shopping center, instigated by one of them, a 22-year-old young man of Afghan nationality,” said a French law enforcement official. The official added that investigators found evidence that “establishes radicalization and loyalty to the ideology of the Islamic State”.
French authorities said the 22-year-old Afghan man was charged on Saturday with plotting to attack civilians and was in pre-trial detention. They said the two people detained with him have been released, but the investigation continues.
In March, German police arrested two Afghans suspected of links to ISIS for allegedly planning an attack on the Swedish parliament. Reported politician. The attacks are believed to be in retaliation for Quran burning incidents in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries.
German prosecutors said the two Afghans “planned to attack police officers and others” near the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, adding that the two men “researched possible crime scenes on the Internet and made several unsuccessful attempts to obtain weapons.” “
US Verification Questions
A central question for US investigators was when Tawheed became radicalized. According to a senior Biden administration official, counterterrorism authorities assessed that this happened during the three years he was in the United States.
A senior law enforcement official said the FBI is still investigating this matter. The CIA declined to comment.
A senior Biden administration official said Tawhedi passed two rounds of testing. Tawhedi was first screened before entering the United States for what is known as humanitarian parole in September 2021, about 10 days after the last American troops left Afghanistan.
He was tested again when he applied for a special immigrant visa while in Oklahoma City, the official said. He was eligible for the visa because he worked for the US government.
Tawhedi got visa approval, the official said, but did not take the final step to formalize it. Special immigrant visas are granted to Afghans who served in the United States in Afghanistan after passing DHS screening.
The screening process includes looking for possible links to terrorism, ISIS or the Taliban, using data from the applicant's electronic devices, biometrics and other sources to search an extensive database compiled by the United States over more than 20 years. in Afghanistan.
