Ashburn Man Gets 23 Years in Metro Terror Plot

After initially pleading not guilty in November 2010, Ashburn resident Farooque Ahmed, 35, changed his plea today and accepted U.S. District Court Judge Bruce Lee’s 23-year sentence, followed by 50 years of supervised release.

Ahmed and his attorneys confirmed the details previously outlined by the U.S. Department of Justice, in which he first sent signals online of his desire to commit “jihad” overseas before meeting with at least two FBI operatives who posed as terrorists. In the plea agreement, Ahmed acknowledges that he performed surveillance and offered ways to increase the success of a plot concocted by the operatives to bomb Metro stations and a Washington, DC, hotel.

“From his home in Ashburn, VA, believing that he was working for al-Qaeda, Farooque Ahmed plotted to carry out the simultaneous bombing of multiple Metro trains in the DC area,” Todd Hinnen, acting assistant attorney general for national security, said during an announcement following the hearing. Hinnen said Ahmed intended to “kill as many people as possible.”

The Ashburn home to which Hinnen referred is a townhouse along Nashua Street in Belmont Greene, where Ahmed lived with his wife. Neighbors expressed surprise at the time of the arrest, although they knew little about the man or his family.

The All Dulles Area Muslim Society, or ADAMS, in Sterling, where Ahmed sometimes attended, immediately condemned the plot upon learning about the arrest last fall. A press release on the ADAMS Web site describes a previous terrorism plot that the group helped the FBI break up. Ahmed, according to investigators, had staked out his own path.

“This individual followed a radical ideology ­– outside that of the mainstream Muslim community – which led him to break the law,” said James W. McJunkin, assistant director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “He now faces the consequences of his actions.”

According to the DOJ’s statement of facts, after making the connection with operatives who he believed to be associated with al-Qaeda, Ahmed met with the men at hotels in Sterling, Herndon and Dulles, where they exchanged information, including future meeting locations and electronic video footage of Metro stations.

In addition, with the plea, Ahmed acknowledges that he offered additional targets and suggested ways to make the attacks more effective, such as where to place a bomb and at which time of day to accomplish the most casualties, and the best way to transport a bomb. Ahmed drew diagrams for the operatives to better explain his suggestions, according to investigators.

During one meeting, Ahmed turned over five Metro fare cards to “enable easy entry into the Metrorail system of the individuals that Ahmed believed would be al-Qaeda suicide bombers,” according to the statement of facts.

In the plea, Ahmed signed his named under the following statement:

• After consulting with my attorneys and pursuant to the plea agreement entered into this day between the defendant Farooque Ahmed, and the United States, I hereby stipulate that the above Statement of Facts is true and accurate and that had the matter proceeded to trial, the United States would have proved the same beyond a reasonable doubt.

An second individual who posted messages online expressing a desire to commit jihad overseas has not been identified by the FBI or the DOJ.