A Bangladeshi man has admitted trying to detonate what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb outside the Federal Reserve Bank in lower Manhattan.
In a Brooklyn federal courtroom yesterday, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, pleaded guilty and admitted that he alone had selected the target.
“I intended to bomb the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Manhattan,” Nafis told the judge. “I had an intention of committing a violent jihadistic act.”
Nafis — who has a flawless command of English and attended college and a technical academy after completing high school — spoke softly as he recounted the plot.
He also apologized for his potentially deadly actions.
“I no longer support violent jihad and deeply and sincerely regret my involvement in this case,” Nafis told the packed courtroom.
Nafis, who was linked to al Qaeda sympathizers, pleaded guilty to attempting to detonate a weapon of mass destruction, under the terms of a plea agreement with the feds.
Nafis will be facing a prison term ranging from 30 years to life when he is sentenced by Brooklyn federal Judge Carol Amon.
Nafis was arrested Oct. 17 by FBI agents shortly after he tried to detonate a car bomb intended to wreak destruction in the heart of the city’s Financial District.
He was later indicted on one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
Undercover FBI agents posing as sympathizers supplied Nafis with a fake bomb to use in the Federal Reserve Bank attack, which Nafis tried to detonate with a radio-controlled triggering device.
Federal authorities say that the public was never at risk from the dummy explosive device.
But Brooklyn US Attorney Loretta Lynch said the plot represented “a very serious threat.”
“This was an individual who was reaching out — who was looking for people to help carry out this particular plan. And he was searching hard,” Lynch said.
“What we saw in this case was his extensive use of social media. He was reaching out via social media — Facebook and others — trying to find individuals who … could be recruited to join his plan,” Lynch said.
“He came with information about how to make bombs that was readily available — it is propagated by al Qaeda publications. He came and learned more,” Lynch said.