Foiled suicide bombing of US Capitol: plot is both familiar and strange

Last December, the Justice Department narrative continues, “He was introduced by a man he knew as ‘Hussien’ to an individual named ‘Yusuf,’ who was, in reality, an undercover law enforcement officer. Throughout December 2011 and January 2012, El Khalifi allegedly proposed to carry out a bombing attack. His proposed targets included a building that contained US military offices, as well as a synagogue, US Army generals, and a restaurant frequented by military officials.”

Over the next month, undercover agents met with El Khalifi, providing what he thought were operable firearms and explosives, and exploding a test device at a nearby quarry.

On Friday, El Khalifi went to a parking garage near the Capitol, where he took possession of a MAC-10 automatic weapon and put on a vest containing what he believed to be a functioning bomb. Agents had rendered both inoperable. He was arrested as he headed toward the Capitol building.

While there have been a series of attempted lone-wolf terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11, this case is unusual in that it involved intended suicide. There have been other suicide attacks attempted and carried out – the attacks of 9/11 using hijacked airliners and the so-called Christmas Day “underwear bomber” who was a passenger on an airliner approaching Detroit.

But until now, the post-911 terrorist attempts on US soil typically have not involved an attacker’s intent to take his own life.

Americans have been killed in suicide bombings overseas – including eight American civilians, seven of them CIA agents, at a base in Afghanistan in 2009. The suicide attacker in that case was a double agent from Jordan acting on behalf of Al Qaeda.

But a quick review of suicide bombings in the US shows very few. These include attacks on schools in 1927 (killing more than three dozen students and teachers) and in 1959 (in which six people were killed), as well as at the University of Oklahoma in 2005 where only the perpetrator was killed.

El Khalifi was charged Friday with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against property that is owned and used by the United States. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

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