Less that a full week after the FBI arrested a man from Afghanistan for allegedly planning a radical Islamic terror attack on Election Day in the United States, a frightening new revelation about the suspect has emerged.
According to White House reporter Jacqui Heinrich, the Biden-Harris administration now admits that an Afghan national accused of plotting an election day terror attack did NOT undergo certain vetting they previously claimed he passed.
It turns out that the suspect named Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi was never vetted or approved by the State Department for special immigrant (SIV) status, despite officials from other agencies claiming that he cleared that stringent process.
NEWS: The Biden-Harris administration now admits that an Afghan national accused of plotting an election day terror attack did not undergo certain vetting they previously claimed he passed. Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi was never vetted or approved by the State Department for special…
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) October 16, 2024
Heinrich also noted, “Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi was not well known to the US government when the administration facilitated his departure to the U.S., despite his security role with the CIA in Afghanistan.”
This is important because it was alleged that the suspect was allowed into the country with a special visa for his help with U.S. armed forces in the region.
As previously reported by The Horn, Tawhedi was paroled into the country, like most Afghan evacuees, and allowed to live in the country temporarily under that immigration authority.
According to a statement from the State Department, 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 — which is what Tawhedi did while in Afghanistan.
According to a CBS report last week, the suspect did apply for an SIV, available to those who assisted American forces, and had his case approved initially, though he never received a green card or permanent U.S. residency.
Now it turns out that he never actually went through the proper vetting process that would allow him into the country.
Records accessed by the FBI to CBS News show Tawhedi allegedly viewed ISIS propaganda and contributed about $540 in cryptocurrency to a charity in Syria “which fronts for and funnels money to ISIS.”
Federal investigators allege Tawhedi searched for access to surveillance and security cameras in Washington, D.C., and checked webcams showing the White House and Washington Monument in late July. They also believe Tawhedi was seeking out places in which gun laws were not as strict.
Federal investigators said they sent a confidential human source and later an undercover FBI agent to secretly interact with the men as they sought to sell their home and other possessions on Facebook and purchase weapons.
In a Sept. 21 message to a person allegedly associated with terrorist activity, Tawhedi said he had purchased two rifles and ordered 500 bullets.
“What do you think, brother? Is it enough or should we increase it,” the message said.
In on-going messages, Tawhedi said his father-in-law’s house had sold for $185,000, and they would receive the funds by Oct. 15. He also asked for help in resettling his family, which included his mother-in-law, wife, their young daughter and five of his wife’s siblings, in Afghanistan. Tawhedi purchased one-way plane tickets for the family to travel to Kabul on Oct. 17.
“After that we will begin our duty, God willing, with the help of God, we will get ready for the election day,” Tawhedi wrote.
The conflicting reports on proper vetting are alarming as national security and intelligence officials continue to warn that these types of threats are going to be on-going.
Last year, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress, “The terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level.”