FBI Thwarts Ohio Man's Plot to Bomb D.C., Kill Government Officials

The FBI announced this week that it has thwarted a plot by an Islamic extremist to bomb part of Washington, D.C. and kill key diplomats.

The FBI said in a criminal complaint filed Wednesday that the plot of an Ohio man to bomb D.C. and shoot government officials was thwarted when the intelligence agency began following the man's Twitter account, which had posts expressing sympathy for the Islamic State.

The suspect, Christopher Lee Cornell, also known as Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah, then told an FBI informant of his plans to "wage jihad" by committing a terrorist act in the Capitol.

As the Associated Press reports, the FBI has been following Cornell, a 20-year-old from Green Township, Ohio, since last year. The FBI informants first began communicating with the suspect on Twitter, and then began private messaging him about a possible plot that would prove their alleged allegiance to the Islamic State.

"I believe we should meet up and make our own group in alliance with the Islamic State here and plan operations ourselves," Cornell reportedly wrote in one of the messages to the FBI, according to the criminal complaint.

Since Cornell's arrest, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have sent a memo to officials across the nation notifying them of the suspect's arrest and the importance of heightened scrutiny, given the current climate on domestic terrorism.

"The alleged activities of Cornell highlight the continued interest of US-based violent extremists to support designated foreign terrorist organizations overseas, such as ISIL, by committing terrorist acts in the United States," the bulletin read.

"Terrorist group members and supporters will almost certainly continue to use social media platforms to disseminate English language violent extremist messages."