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An Egyptian man living in Virginia who was to be deported has been charged with plotting attack at the Israeli consulate in New York.
Abdullah Azz al-Din Taha Muhammad Hassan allegedly provided bomb-making instructions and plans to attack the Manhattan consulate to an undercover FBI source, according to court documents. He was arrested Tuesday, the FBI told Fox News Digital.
Hassan is charged with distributing information related to explosives, destructive devices and weapons of mass destruction in furtherance of the commission of a federal crime.
On the opposite side of the pro-Palestinian protest area, a group of pro-Israel protesters gathered, holding Israeli flags in front of the Consulate General of Israel in New York. (Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“The FBI office in New York wants to reassure our Jewish community here New York that our office — along with our law enforcement partners — remain vigilant in our efforts to identify, investigate and disrupt potential threats to our community, using every tool at our disposal to do so. As always, we urge all members of the community to report suspicious activity to law enforcement and call 911 in the event of imminent violence or threats to life,” the FBI said in a statement.
“We will continue to work to ensure our communities remain safe places for all and we thank the public for their continued trust and partnership.”
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Hassan came to the FBI’s attention after the Fairfax County Police Department notified federal authorities that a tipster alerted police to his social media posts on X. The tipster said the account engaged in “radical and terrorist behavior.”
In several posts, Hassan praised the Islamic State terrorist group and other radical figures, federal prosecutors said. In August, he started exchanging messages with an FBI confidential source who he believed had recruited him to carry out a “mass casualty attack,” authorities said.
Protesters at an “emergency rally for Gaza” outside the Israeli consulate in New York on October 9, 2023. (Jennifer Mitchell for Fox News Digital)
Over the course of several weeks, Hassan instructed the informant on how to build a bomb, obtain weapons and how to make a “martyrdom video,” authorities said. In November, he reportedly singled out the Consulate General of Israel as a target, saying it would be easier to commit a small arms attack and be “martyred” by the police.
He believed New York would be a “gold mine of targets” for the attack, prosecutors said. As the pair planned the attack, Hassan also allegedly told him to book flights to countries that do not have an extradition treaty with the United States. During the attack, Hassan said the source could have either killed the people inside the consulate with an assault rifle or detonated an explosive vest while standing in a group of targets, court documents said.
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Hassan was also looking for a source for live streaming attack so he could watch it in real time, authorities said.
In a statement, Jonathan Harounoff, international spokesman for Israel’s permanent mission to the United Nations, said the Jewish state “will not bow to terror.”
“We will not remain silent in the face of hatred and violence,” he said. “We will not stop in our search for justice and peace. We will continue our fight for the return of all 100 of our hostages who are still being held in Hamas’ terrorist tunnels in Gaza.”
Sara Netanyahu and Ofir Akunis, Consul General of Israel, attend a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the 79th session of the General Assembly at UN headquarters. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York, expressed gratitude to the authorities for preventing the alleged attack.
“This attempted attack by terrorist organizations is an attack on the sovereign soil of the State of Israel in its entirety,” he wrote on X. “It is proof that terror knows no borders and that we must fight it everywhere and every time. The threat is posed to the Western world and against its values must be fought together by all Western democracies and we will win together.”
