College Student Targets North Texas, Bush Residence

A former Texas Tech student was arrested last week accused of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

FBI agents uncovered evidence they believe showed that the student was attempting to create an improvised explosive device (IED) targeting several locations, including Dallas.

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, a 20-year-old Saudi Arabian national, is a business student at South Plains College near Lubbock.

He {snip} has been in the United States since 2008 on a student visa.

Aldawsari allegedly e-mailed himself potential targets that included the North Dallas address of former President George W. Bush, nuclear power plants and 12 reservoir dams in Colorado and California.

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Legally authorized electronic surveillance showed that e-mails that Aldawsari sent himself included information relating to research regarding his targets, explosives and their contents.

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Other e-mails also showed evidence that Aldawsari planned on hiding explosives and weapons in realistic dolls and baby carriages.

The surveillance also found that on Feb. 19, Aldawsari made the following key-word searches: “party in dallas”, “can u take a backpack to nightclub” and “dallas night clubs.”

These terms potentially “indicate Aldawsari’s consideration of targeting a nightclub with an explosive concealed in a backpack,” the affidavit stated.

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Other confirmation e-mails from Amazon.com included items such as a 3.2 million-volt stun gun with built-in flashlight, miniature Christmas lights, Pyrex flasks and a chemistry laboratory set.

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During the search, a personal journal was discovered that was written in Arabic. Translation of the journal indicated that Aldawsari had been planning an attack on the United States for years.

“I excelled in my studies in high school in order to take advantage of an opportunity for a scholarship to America, offered by the Saululi government and its companies,” Aldawsari’s diary read. “[The] financial scholarship is the largest, which will help me tremendously in providing me with the support I need for Jihad, God willing.”

In another entry, Aldawsari listed a “synopsis of important steps” where he noted what he needed to do in order to accomplish his goals.

The steps were listed as follows: obtaining a forged U.S. birth certificate, applying for a U.S. passport and driver’s license, traveling to New York for at least a week, renting a car via the Internet, changing clothing and appearance before picking up the car, using a different driver’s license for each car rented, preparing the bombs for remote detonation, putting bombs into cars and taking them to different places during rush hour and finally leaving the city for a safe place.

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