Thread: Man arrested in plot to blow up Illinois fed building

Man arrested in plot to blow up Illinois fed building

In a separate terror investigation, the FBI announced today that an Illinois man was arrested yesterday in a plot to use a truck bomb to blow up the federal building in the state capital.

Michael C. Finton, also known as Talib Islam, allegedly drove a van containing inactive explosives to the Paul Findley Federal Building and Courthouse in Springfield and tried to detonate them using a cell phone. Undercover FBI agents and confidential sources were involved in the sting and monitored Finton until he was arrested after attempting to trigger the bomb from several blocks away.

Finton, 29, of Decatur, was charged with attempted murder of federal employees and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Authorities say his arrest is not connected to other terror investigations in New York and Colorado.

The FBI affidavit says that in three videos he made, Finton explained that he wanted to attack U.S. targets because the nation is at war with Islam.

While in prison in 2007 for a parole violation, Finton wrote to John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban who was captured in Afghanistan and imprisoned for terrorism. After being released in January 2008, Finton reportedly said he idolized Walker.

In March 2008, the Justice Department says, someone in Saudi Arabia paid for Finton to travel there in April. He returned to the United States in May 2008. Finton then made contact with someone who was a law enforcement source, who introduced him to an FBI agent posing as an Al-Qaeda operative. Finton reportedly expressed his desire to receive military training at a camp and to fight in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia or other locations. That's when the alleged plot was hatched, the FBI says.

Read the news release for the complete narrative.

(Photo of Michael C. Finton from the Illinois Department of Corrections. Photo of the Paul Findley Federal Building and Courthouse in Springfield, Ill., by Seth Perlman, AP.)

Posted by Michael Winter at 06:53 PM/ET, September 24, 2009 in Crime, Nation, Terrorism

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/20 ... lding.html

Lovely.

And people wonder why I think twice about setting foot in a post office, SS administration building etc.......even the store when I see the Brinks truck outside.

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Press Release
September 24, 2009

ILLINOIS MAN ARRESTED IN PLOT TO BOMB COURTHOUSE AND MURDER FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

-- Vehicle Bomb Placed at Scene Was Inactive and Posed No Danger to Public --

SPRINGFIELD – Acting U.S. Attorney Jeffrey B. Lang of the Central District of Illinois and Karen E. Spangenberg, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI, Springfield Division, today announced that Michael C. Finton, a.k.a., “Talib Islam,â€