The Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that a terrorist plot to assassinate President George W. Bush was discovered earlier in the year.
Shihab Ahmed Shihab, an Iraqi asylum seeker, described the plan to a paid FBI informant who also drove the suspect around Dallas to conduct surveillance on Bush’s home and offices in February, according to a March 23 search warrant unsealed last month in federal court in Columbus, Ohio.
The plotters “wished to kill former president Bush because they felt that he was responsible for killing many Iraqis and breaking apart the entire country of Iraq,” FBI Special Agent John Ypsilantis, a member of Joint Terrorism Task Force in Cincinnati, said in the filing.
Forbes reported that the warrant has been renewed. A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in Cincinnati declined to comment.
ISIS support
According to the FBI agent, four Iraqi nationals were being smuggled in from Turkey and Egypt. Two of these were former intelligence agents. The plot involved infiltrating the Mexican border with Texas and getting the plotters to Mexico, Ypsilantis stated.
Though Shihab was not himself a member of the Islamic State militant group, the warrant described the smuggling plot as an “attempt to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, specifically ISIS.”
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A Columbus resident, Shihab asked the informant for details about security operations at Bush’s home in Dallas and Crawford, Texas, ranch, the FBI agent said. In February, the informant picked up Shihab at the airport in Dallas and assisted him as he used his phone to record video of Bush’s gated home as well as the library and offices at the George W. Bush Institute, according to the filing.
Shihab allegedly told the informant “that he wanted to be involved in the actual attack and assassination” and that he “did not care if he died as he would be proud to have been involved.” according to the search warrant.
A FBI agent answered the question about fake FBI badges or police badges.
Bush last week reignited controversy over the war when he inadvertently transposed “Iraq” for “Ukraine” while criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin for a launching a “wholly unjustified and brutal invasion.”
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