An Iraqi asylum seeker living in Columbus, Ohio, has been arrested by the FBI, according to NBC, after plotting an assassination attempt on former US President George W. Bush in recent months.
According to the arrest warrant, the existence of which was revealed on Tuesday by the magazine Forbesthe man, a sympathizer of the terrorist organization Islamic State, aimed to avenge the death of his compatriots and the destruction of Iraq during the 2003 war.
The man, named Shihab Ahmed Shihab, notably went to Texas last February to film the residence of the former American president, as well as his personal office, located on the campus of Southern Methodist University.
Last year, he tried to recruit a team of Iraqis from Iraq, Turkey, Egypt and Denmark, whom he sought to smuggle into the United States through the Mexican border. , in order to carry out his plan.
Shihab Ahmed Shihab has lived in the United States since 2020. His asylum claim was being assessed by the US government.
He announced his intentions without knowing it to two FBI informants who knew him. The surveillance of his communications on the WhatsApp network, a service sold to its millions of users by the multinational Meta as being encrypted, also made it possible to thwart his planned attack against the former president of the United States.
The outbreak of the war in Iraq, supported by false information about the possession of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein’s regime, occurred during George W. Bush’s first term in the White House.
Between the entry of Western coalition forces, led by the United States, to bring down the Iraqi dictator and the departure of American troops in 2011, nearly 460,000 Iraqis have lost their lives due to this conflict. , calculated the scientific journal PLOS Medicine in 2013.
Member of a “special unit”?
According to the FBI arrest warrant, the alleged conspirator told the two informants that he was part of a special unit, dubbed “Al-Raed” – “the thunder” in Arabic – led by a former Iraqi pilot of Saddam Hussein who was based in Qatar until his death a few months ago. Seven members of the group were to be sent to the United States to kill President Bush. Mr. Shihab was responsible for “locating and monitoring the residences and / or offices of former President Bush”, but also for obtaining weapons and vehicles for the passage to the act.
The FBI has not commented on the investigation or the arrest warrant issued for Shihab Ahmed Shihab.
In a written statement quoted by Forbes, a spokesman for the former president indicated that George W. Bush was not very concerned about the existence of a plan to eliminate him. “President Bush has all the confidence in the world in the American secret service, just as he does in the police and intelligence services,” declared his former chief of staff, Freddy Ford.
Concordance of times, last week, the former American president brought the spotlight back to the war in Iraq in a revealing slip made during a conference delivered from his presidential library. He indeed spoke of the war in Iraq as a “totally unjustified and brutal invasion”, and this, whereas he meant rather the one in progress in Ukraine.
Jokingly, he justified his slight confusion with his age; Mr. Bush is now 75 years old.