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EXCLUSIVE: The FBI thwarted a massive terror attack in October that prevented the killing of countless Americans and exposed a global terror network through their investigative strategy that led to “some of the most impactful arrests” in the counterterrorism program in recent years.
Fox News Digital sat down Thursday for an exclusive interview with FBI Director Kash Patel, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino and a senior agent official with direct involvement in counterterrorism cases.
THWARTED MICHIGAN HALLOWEEN TERROR PLOT HAD CONNECTION TO ISIS, FOX NEWS LEARNS
The potential terror attack was set to take place in Michigan ahead of Halloween weekend and allegedly had a connection to ISIS, the FBI said. The FBI arrested multiple suspects accused of plotting the terror attack.
“The arrests that happened in Detroit, Newark, and Seattle represent one of the most deadly plots faced by the FBI in recent memory,” the agent told Fox News Digital. “Those eight arrests, and ones that have happened around the world are some of the most impactful arrests that have happened in the counterterrorism program in recent years.”
Two men have been charged in federal court — Mohamed Ali and Majed Mahmoud, both from Dearborn, Michigan. The charges involve transferring firearms and ammunition and conspiring or attempting to do so, knowing they would be used to commit and support terrorism and providing material support to ISIS.
The government alleges five individuals were involved in the plot, including one minor.
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Patel told Fox News Digital that the FBI “arrested the people who were the overt actors immediately, while constantly surveilling the people in New Jersey and Seattle.”
“We arrested them in a coordinated fashion thereafter to take down the entire network,” Patel said, hitting back at critics. “If we were to do this the way the media wanted us to do it, we would have waited for them to kill Americans, and then arrest them.”
Patel was referring to media reports critical of the FBI’s timeline that claimed investigators didn’t have enough details on whether the attack was actually imminent.
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“If we hadn’t moved, we would not have fleshed out the entire network that we now know spans the entire globe,” the agent told Fox News Digital. “There have been arrests overseas that have been directly related to the same plot, and that would not have happened had we prematurely executed those arrests.”
The agent told Fox News Digital that he could not provide further details due to current prosecutions in the U.S. and Europe related to the potential attack.
SUSPECTS IN FOILED HALLOWEEN TERROR PLOT PICTURED PRACTICING AT MICHIGAN GUN RANGE: FBI
“People would have died. A lot of them. That’s a fact. A lot of people would have died,” Bongino told Fox News Digital. “And their work stopped it.”
In October, the FBI executed search warrants on the homes of Ali and Mahmoud and a storage unit they allegedly shared, seizing multiple semiautomatic rifles, a shotgun, handguns, tactical gear and more than 1,600 rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition.
Agents also recovered surveillance video showing Ali and other alleged conspirators at a Michigan gun range, where they are accused of practicing shooting in preparation for the foiled attack.
According to an FBI affidavit, the conspirators allegedly drew inspiration from the Pulse shooting and the 2015 coordinated terror attacks in Paris, which killed 137 and injured more than 400.
In Michigan, the suspects also sought advice from the father of a local “Islamic extremist ideologue,” according to the FBI affidavit, allegedly seeking religious approval for the plot.
They also allegedly discussed choosing a date that would be celebrated by subsequent radical Islamic terrorists.
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