A plot to kill discovered

• Tarek Mehanna, above, is charged with lying to the FBI in December 2006 when questioned about the whereabouts and activities of Daniel J. Maldonado.

A 27-year-old Massachusetts man conspired to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in U.S. malls and American troops in Iraq, federal prosecutors said Wednesday as they announced his arrest.

Tarek Mehanna of Sudbury sought - but never received - training in terrorist camps and worked with others from 2001 to May 2008 on the conspiracy to "kill, kidnap, maim or injure" people in foreign countries and the politicians, authorities said.

The politicians were members of the executive branch who are no longer in office, authorities said. They refused to give their names.

Mehanna, who was living in a sprawling house with his parents, is charged with lying to the FBI in December 2006 when questioned about the whereabouts and activities of Daniel J. Maldonado, a former Methuen resident who was suspected of training at an Al Qaeda terrorist camp to overthrow the Somali government, The Boston Globe reported in November 2008.

An FBI affidavit unsealed in federal court in Boston Monday alleges that Mehanna told agents on Dec. 16, 2006, that he had known Maldonado for three or four years and that when he last spoke to him two weeks earlier, Maldonado was living in a suburb of Alexandria, Egypt, and working for a Web site, according to the Globe.


Prosecutors said Mehanna conspired with two other men: Ahman Abousamra, who authorities say is now in Syria, and an unnamed man, who is cooperating with authorities in the investigation.

The three men discussed their desire to participate in "violent jihad against American interests" and talked about "their desire to die on the battlefield," prosecutors said.

Mehanna had "multiple conversations about obtaining automatic weapons and randomly shooting people in shopping malls," Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Loucks said. Their plan was thwarted when they could only get handguns, not automatic weapons, he said. Prosecutors would not say which malls had been targeted.

I wonder how long does it really have to take for the someone to start acting on informant information, why does it take 2 years to discover these idiots terrorist plots?. 9/11 was not something that was discovered on that day of September 11, 2001, in fact, it was years in advance. The weird thing is that no one believe that it could happen. Now that we have saw the results of lax behavior, what are we going to do? We have one of two choices, we either cowboy up and move swiftly like a thief in the night, or are we continue to sit on our hands and wait for the messenger of death...