FBI: Mass. man had "mission" against Pentagon

Accused terrorist Rezwan Ferdaus of Ashland, Mass., who allegedly plotted to fly remote-controlled airplane filled with explosives into the Pentagon. / CBS

WORCESTER, Mass. - A lawyer for a man accused of plotting to fly explosives-packed remote-controlled planes into the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol suggested Friday that the FBI ignored signs of mental illness while investigating him.

The suggestion came during a bail hearing for Rezwan Ferdaus, who faces charges including attempting to provide material support to terrorists and attempting to damage and destroy national defense premises.

Ferdaus, a Muslim American with a physics degree from Boston's Northeastern University, was arrested in Framingham in September after federal employees posing as al Qaeda members delivered what he believed was 24 pounds of C-4 explosives.

FBI special agent Bradley Davis, testifying for prosecutors, said Ferdaus, 26, asked undercover FBI employees he believed were al Qaeda members to get him C-4 explosives, AK-47 assault rifles and grenades so he could carry out the attacks. Davis said Ferdaus also showed the undercover employees a cellphone he had fashioned into a detonator. Davis said FBI bomb technicians analyzed the device and "came to the conclusion that it could actually be used" to detonate explosives.

"The device would function to provide an electrical impetus to an improvised explosive device," Davis said.

Davis said the FBI began investigating Ferdaus, of Ashland, in 2010. In January 2011, an informant cooperating with the FBI secretly recorded Ferdaus as the two men talked about the attacks, prosecutors said.

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In a portion of the recording played in court Friday, Ferdaus can be heard talking about "a small drone airplane that can be programmed to hit a target."

Davis said Ferdaus provided two detailed plans to the undercover employees in May and June.

In one, he summarized the plot to attack the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, including launch site locations and target locations, flight route descriptions and photographs of the buildings with arrows drawn in to show the points of impact, prosecutors said.

The other was similar, except it also included a "ground assault," the prosecution said. That plan said that when Pentagon employees ran from the building after the explosion, they would be "corralled into certain locations, and others enlisted would gun them down with automatic weapons and grenades," Davis said.

Davis said the undercover employees repeatedly asked Ferdaus if he wanted to continue with his plan.

"Each time that they asked if he was continuing this, he indicated that was all he wanted to do, that was his mission, that's what he was here for," Davis said.

Davis said Ferdaus told the men he wanted to hurt the United States, which he referred to as "the snake."

"It was an evil land. The United states was evil and an enemy to Islam," Davis said, recalling the conversation.

During cross-examination by Ferdaus' lawyer, Miriam Conrad, Davis acknowledged that Ferdaus told the undercover employees he was anxious and depressed and was having "intrusive thoughts" in the month before his arrest.

He also acknowledged that the FBI had received during the investigation reports about bizarre behavior by Ferdaus, including a report to Hopkinton police in February that he was standing in the road not moving and appeared to have wet his pants.

Conrad asked Davis whether those reports "gave the FBI concern about the mental health of the target."

"It's a consideration, but it's not a concern," Davis said. "Our concern was for public safety."

Davis added, "Even individuals with mental health issues are a danger and a threat to the public."

Conrad also challenged the credibility of the informant who first talked to Ferdaus. Davis acknowledged that the informant had a criminal record and "substance abuse issues."

Conrad said the man was a heroin addict who had been arrested twice while working as an informant for the FBI.

The bail hearing for Ferdaus, who has denied the charges against him, is scheduled to continue on Nov. 14.

[berlinfoto-2009]

Davis acknowledged that the informant had a criminal record and "substance abuse issues."
Ok this wonderfully clean informant who never hurt a fly, tells his FBI handlers that he has located a Islamic terrorist, the FBI people who have been thoroughly brainwashed into being supper patriots, jump into action with their Russian Sleep Machine, they use this special machine to hypnotize their mark, into making terrorist type statements and threats, and agree to purchase fake explosives.
Folks this is how it is done, a Russian Sleep Machine, our government has used this sort of thing since 1949. wake up
If you do not think this is possible and how it is done, then pity on you I hope you are next.

[smittyc]

Actually he was doing the same thing the U.S. is doing with its suicide drones. His plan could have had some serious consequences in targeting a small size area or a single or small group of people. Even a plane if he blew it up on contact with the fuselage tanks. His plan indicates that are not that far behind us and seem to mimic what we are doing just on a smaller scale.

[bigsk8fan]

ah the religion of peace! these mohammadins are better suited to surreptitiously entering a school playground and then unleashing their 'brave' torrent of bullets from an uzi. or perhaps the islamites would prefer to secret an explosive on their naked bodies and detonate said device in the midst of a marketplace crowded with pregnant women. ah yes, peaceful muslimites practicing their brand of 'love'. and these clowns never have a sense of humor when we depict mohammad with a bomb turban!

[technocoffee]

A religion who loves war & child rape ("Prophet" Muhammed "married" a 6-year-old girl) can never build a progressive civilization, so they have to spend their time trying to blow ours up.

[berlinfoto-2009]

Artificially Produced Mental Illness, is a tremendous problem in the United States, our government is the world leader in producing APMI. Dissociative Identity Disorder is just one of the things the government does to people, we are talking about raping babies, here our government has done this.
The overall sickness of our society can be judged by the amount of sickness that we allow our government to get away with, and we allow the government to get away with a tremendous amount of sickness. This case is probably a case of "BRAINWASHING". And sick Americans let our government get away with it. We need more fear, we need more police, we need more violence, we need more oppression.

[berlinfoto-2009]

And I forgot we need more mental illness, we need a government that practices devil worshiping and occultism.
Forced Psychiatric Treatment, is the polite name for Brain Washing,
One thing that historians can tell you about the holocaust, is that had the Jewish people believed that it was truly possible, for it to happen, and had they talked about it, prior to it happing, they could have prevented it, form happing.
Americans do not talk about their mentally ill government, the FBI works to keep it a secret, by making, more and more people mentally ill.
Read the Franklin cover up for just one example, of many

[Johnston1212]

Why am I not surprised. Muslim whacky. 100 percent why are the democracy-phobes so fearful of the united states and our democracy. Let their fear fester as they destroy their religion from the inside out. As communism crumbled on itself Islam will poof like a hot air balloon.

[daniwitz13-2009]

When I read about this case when it first came out, I made a comment about their usual 'sting' operation of going along with their plans and actually providing them either with the money or the goods. In this case they gave him the money to buy the remote controlled model plane. But then I thought,what if his plan was to acquire a rocket and fly to the Moon and launch his missiles with GPS and Nuke warheads to the Pentagon. I thought, would they provide him with a rocket to launch all this stuff and send the informant with him, to make sure he doesn't launch the REAL stuff and hurt people. And of course arrest him when they came back to Earth and the informant's word that he really "intended" to Nuke the Pentagon. The 'plan' they concocted for him is about the same as mine and the same caliber, they just won't admit it. Pity.