(RightWing.org) – Lefty liberals like to distract attention from President Joe Biden’s failed border and immigration policies by claiming that hard-right extremism and white supremacy, coupled with domestic terrorism, present the greatest risk to national security. They make those claims by citing dubious sources like Southern Poverty Law Center. However, even a broken clock is correct a couple of times a day, as evidenced by the recent arrest of a 17-year-old for communicating with terrorists and amassing bomb-making materials.
On August 14, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office issued a press release detailing the arrest and upcoming prosecution of a teenage resident of West Philadelphia. The notice didn’t reveal the name or gender of the person due to their status as a juvenile.
The statement explained that an investigation spearheaded by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, supplemented by Philadelphia Police Department detectives, led to the teenager’s arrest. On August 11, a team of FBI SWAT members surrounded the juvenile’s home and placed the teenager under arrest without further incident.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force spearheaded the investigation into the teen’s activities, aided by Philadelphia Police Department detectives. Jacqueline Maguire, the FBI special agent in charge, provided details of the juvenile’s alleged crimes. She said the teen used an Instagram to contact known global terrorist organizations like the Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad (KTJ), a Syrian group believed to have been responsible for the 2016 suicide bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan and the 2017 attack on St. Petersburg, Russia.
The task force also connected an account with the messaging platform WhatsApp reportedly used by the juvenile to communicate with another one associated with the KTJ. The teen used images of the banners for ISIS and a Chechnya-based terrorist group for its profile picture.
District Attorney Larry Krasner confirmed that the juvenile and KTJ members discussed the materials and means of constructing improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The teenager allegedly purchased materials online to make them. On August 8, investigators received records from US Customs and Border Protection officials showing the juvenile received several international shipments of military and tactical gear at their home address.
The juvenile faces seven felony counts, including charges related to weapons of mass destruction, risking/causing catastrophe, and criminal conspiracy. It remains unclear if the judge currently overseeing the case will transfer it to adult criminal court.
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