It's going to happen here. We don't know when or where or how big it will be when it happens, but it's going to happen here.
One incident, though, has at least been headed off. Twenty-seven-year-old Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, an Afghan national in the United States on a Special Immigrant Visa, has been arrested by the FBI and charged with planning an Election Day terror attack right here, in the United States.
According to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday, Tawhedi and unnamed co-conspirators were followers of ISIS and took steps to carry out their attack in the U.S., including selling the family home, working to relocate family abroad and purchasing ammunition.
"Their ultimate aim was to stage a violent attack in the United States in the name of and on behalf of ISIS," prosecutors wrote.
Twenty-seven-year-old Tawhedi traveled to the U.S. on a special immigrant visa in 2021, the criminal complaint says. The U.S. offers Special Immigrant Visas to individuals who worked with the U.S. armed forces or under chief of mission authority as a translator or interpreter in either Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the State Department. It offers visas to up to 50 people a year.
It's unclear how Tawhedi was awarded this visa, normally given to Afghans who would have been in danger if they remained under the Taliban, who swept back into power within moments of the disastrous Biden pullout from that country. It seems obvious that whatever screening or vetting was done on Tawhedi, it was insufficient, but at least the FBI managed to catch up with him before November 5th.
He was also in contact with other co-conspirators — or handlers?
In a Sept. 21 message to a person allegedly associated with terrorist activity, Tawhedi said he had purchased two kalashnikov rifles and ordered 500 bullets.
"What do you think, brother? Is it enough or should we increase it?," the Telegram message said.
Bear in mind that this isn't a young man, like so many unattached, military-age young men, who have poured across our open southern border, unscreened, unvetted, largely unknown. This man, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, was issued a visa by the United States State Department. It's unclear what he did with the U.S. military or U.S. government to merit the Special Immigrant Visa, but clearly, something in that process went awry. It's possible, of course, that Tawhedi was radicalized after coming to the United States, but Afghanistan seems much more fertile ground for turning young men into Islamist terrorists. While we cannot know, it seems much more likely that Tawhedi worked his way into the good graces of the United States and came here to do something unpleasant. He may not have had a plan, but he had the intent, and were it not for someone in the FBI actually being on the ball, something horrible would have happened. And that something would not only have shaken American's faith in their government — if indeed any of us still have any — but could also have had a chilling effect on voter turnout, depending on where and when the attack happened.
Keep your eyes open. Stay alert. Be prepared. It's going to happen here.