Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari was sentenced in Amarillo. Prosecutors say he had collected bomb-making material in his apartment and researched possible targets, including the Dallas home of Bush. A handwritten journal found in his apartment included notes that he believed it was time for "jihad," a Muslim term for holy war.
Although the 22-year-old Aldawsari apologized Tuesday for "these bad actions," Judge Donald E. Walter said the evidence against him was overwhelming. Walter acknowledged he was conflicted due to Aldawsari's youth and signs that outside influences had led him astray.
"But the bottom line is that but by the grace of God there would be dead Americans," Walter said. "You would have done it. In every step, it was you all alone."
Read more in this report by Betsy Blaney of The Associated Press.
A paid informant for the New York Police Department's intelligence unit was under orders to "bait" Muslims into saying inflammatory things as he lived a double life, snapping pictures inside mosques and collecting the names of innocent people attending study groups on Islam, according to a report from The Associated Press.
Shamiur Rahman, a 19-year-old American of Bangladeshi descent (shown on the left in this photo) said police told him to embrace a strategy called "create and capture."
He said it involved creating a conversation about jihad or terrorism, then capturing the response to send to the NYPD. For his work, he earned as much as $1,000 a month and goodwill from the police after a string of minor marijuana arrests.
"We need you to pretend to be one of them," Rahman recalled the police telling him. "It's street theater."
Go here to read the entire AP report.
A Texas man pleaded guilty Wednesday to plotting to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S., agreeing to hire what he thought was a drug dealer in Mexico last year for $1.5 million to carry out the attack with explosives at a Washington restaurant.
Manssor Arbabsiar, 57, a U.S. citizen who holds an Iranian passport, (shown here) faces up to 25 years in prison.
Arbabsiar, who lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, for more than a decade, said he met a man in Mexico named Junior, "who turned out to be an FBI agent." He said that he and others had agreed to arrange the kidnapping of the ambassador, but Junior said it would be easier to kill the ambassador.
Read more in this report from The Associated Press.
"In the name of God, the gracious and merciful, this is my vow to you, my brother, that I am ready. And if you were a lover of jihad as I am, then, by God, I am ready for the jihad life."
Those were the comments of Hosam "Sam" Smadi, (right) the Jordanian national accused of trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper in September, according to FBI agents
Now Smadi is is preparing, not for the jihad life, but a life behind bars. He is scheduled to plead guilty this afternoon in a Dallas federal court, according to reports.
Smadi was 19 in September when FBI agents tricked him into thinking he was detonating a bomb beneath Fountain Place.
-- Compiled by Bill Miller from a report by Mitch Mitchell.
The American woman who authorities say called herself "Jihad Jane" pleaded not guilty Thursday in Philadelphia to charges that she tried to help terrorists and kill someone in another country.
Colleen LaRose (right) appeared in a federal courtroom full of spectators.
National media, including CNN, are reporting that her hair "was pulled back in several rows of braids and tied into a ponytail. She wore a green jumpsuit, and her hands were handcuffed behind her back."
-- Bill Miller
