New York City teen arrested for allegedly plotting ISIS-inspired attack
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. (ABC News) – A 19-year-old man from New York City has been arrested as part of a national security investigation into a planned ISIS-inspired attack, sources told ABC News.
According to law enforcement sources, the man exchanged texts with undercover investigators about his interest in conducting a possible knife attack in Queens, New York.
In a statement, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York said, “There is no current public safety issue as a result of the arrest.”
The arrests were one of many recently connected to ISIS sympathizers.
A federal grand jury returned an indictment against a man from Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, saying he was inspired by ISIS when he stole a U-Haul van on March 26 and drove it to Maryland with the intent of using it as a weapon to hit pedestrians on sidewalks at the National Harbor complex on the Potomac River.
In mid-July, Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, a naturalized citizen from Kazakhstan living in Brooklyn, was charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court.
He had allegedly traveled to Syria first in 2013 and became a sniper and weapons instructor for ISIS.
It was less than a week ago that two women from Queens, Noelle Velentzas, 31, and Asia Siddiqui, 35, pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to build an explosive device after the ISIS sympathizers communicated with an undercover agent.
