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02-11-2025
WASHINGTON: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States has announced that it disrupted an alleged “terrorist attack” in the northern state of Michigan.
Few details were released about the operation or the suspects involved. In a social media post on Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel pledged to reveal more information later on.
“This morning the FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack and arrested multiple subjects in Michigan who were allegedly plotting a violent attack over Halloween weekend,” he wrote.
“Thanks to the men and women of FBI and law enforcement everywhere standing guard 24/7 and crushing our mission to defend the homeland.”
Patel did not specify which part of Michigan the FBI operation took place in. But in a separate social media post on Friday, the police department for the city of Dearborn noted that FBI agents had been active in its community.
It is unclear whether their presence pertained to the same operation or a different one.
“The Dearborn Police Department has been made aware that the FBI conducted operations in the city of Dearborn earlier this morning,” the department wrote. “We want to assure our residents that there is no threat to the community at this time.”
Located in southeast Michigan, near Detroit, Dearborn is known as the headquarters for the Ford Motor Company, and it is the first city in the US to have an Arab American majority.
The Detroit Free Press, a Michigan newspaper, reported there were also FBI operations in Inkster, another suburb of Detroit.
Whitmer kidnapping plot
In 2020, a group of men were arrested while preparing to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as revenge for the COVID-19 restrictions her administration had placed on the state.
The FBI, which stopped that attack before the governor was injured, arrested 13 people in connection with the conspiracy. Of those, 11 were convicted.
Whitmer wasn’t physically harmed, and the members of the conspiracy, which included several people with ties to domestic militia groups, were arrested in fall 2020 by FBI agents embedded in the group.
“They had no real plan for what to do with the governor if they actually seized her. Paradoxically, this made them more dangerous, not less,” Assistant US Attorney Nils Kessler said in a court filing submitted during one of the men’s trials.
Political violence on the rise
The alleged terrorist plot in Michigan is another example of a rising tide of political violence in the US. Charlie Kirk, who started the Arizona-based political organization Turning Point USA and had been a leader rallying young conservatives for Trump, died Sept. 10 after he was shot during an outdoor event at Utah Valley University.
On June 14, Democrat Melissa Hortman, Minnesota’s state House speaker, and her husband were shot to death in their suburban Minneapolis home in what authorities called an act of targeted political violence.
In April, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, his family and guests fled the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg after a man broke into the home and set a fire that caused significant damage. It happened during the Jewish holiday of Passover, and Shapiro is Jewish.
Last year, Trump was the target of an assassination attempt during an election campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was shot in the ear. (Int’l News Desk)
