Associated Press (10/22/09) Lavoie, Denise
Authorities on Wednesday arrested 27-year-old Tarek Mehanna, a resident of the Boston suburb of Sudbury, Mass., who is accused of conspiring with two others to support terrorism. According to authorities, Mehanna and the two other individuals--Ahmed Abousamra, an American who is now in Syria, and an unidentified man who is now cooperating with authorities--conspired between 2001 and 2008 to shoot shoppers in U.S. malls and to "kill, kidnap, maim, or injure" U.S. soldiers in Iraq, as well as two politicians who were once part of the executive branch but have since left office. The politicians, who authorities say were never in any danger, have not been identified. Prosecutors say that the men wanted to carry out the attacks because they were angry about the presence of U.S. troops in the Middle East. Despite their plans, Mehanna and his co-conspirators never came close to carrying out an attack. Authorities say that their repeated attempts to enter terrorist training camps failed, and that they could not get the weapons they wanted to carry out the attacks in U.S. malls.
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