Posted on July 28, 2011

AWOL Soldier Arrested Over Concerns of Second Alleged Plot to Attack Fort Hood

Mike Levine and Jennifer Griffin, Fox News, July 28, 2011

A U.S. military serviceman has been arrested in connection with an alleged plot to attack Fort Hood nearly two years after a deadly shooting rampage at the base, Fox News has learned exclusively.

Pvt. Naser Jason Abdo, an AWOL soldier from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was arrested by the Killeen Police Department near Fort Hood and remains in custody there.

Abdo, 21, was found with weapons, explosives and jihadist materials at the time of his arrest, a senior Army source confirms to Fox News. He was arrested at around 2 p.m. Wednesday after someone called authorities to report a suspicious individual.

Eric Vasys, a spokesman with the FBI’s San Antonio Office, said authorities found firearms and bomb making components inside Abdo’s motel room. Sources also say Abdo was attempting to make a purchase at Guns Galore in Killeen, the same ammunition store where Major Nidal Hasan purchased weapons that were allegedly used to gun down 13 people and wound 30 others on Nov. 5, 2009.

Sources said Abdo had enough materials to make two bombs, including 18 pounds of sugar and six pounds of smokeless gunpowder–a possible trigger for an explosive. A pressure cooker was also found.

“He was all ready to go,” one law enforcement source said.

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Bob Jenkins, a Fort Campbell spokesman, told Fox News that Abdo was also being investigated for child pornography found on his government computer.

Abdo went AWOL on July 4. On the eve of his first deployment to Afghanistan–after only one year in the Army–Abdo applied for conscientious objector status. It was denied by his superiors at Ft. Campbell but later overturned by the Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Army review board.

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