An alleged US Al-Qaeda sympathizer described as a “lone wolf” was in custody Monday on charges of plotting to build pipe bombs to kill government workers and returning US troops. New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said 27-year-old Jose Pimentel, a native of the Dominican Republic who became a US citizen and converted to Islam, had gleaned his bomb-making knowledge from an online magazine published by slain radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi. One of the articles published by the magazine was titled “How to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday that Pimentel was targeting police, postal facilities and others and said he was a “lone wolf” without affiliation to foreign terrorist organizations. “He was not part of a larger conspiracy,” said the mayor. Kelly said Pimentel, though not affiliated with an outside group, was a follower of Awlaqi, who was killed in a US raid earlier this year. “He talked about changing his name to Osama Hussein, to celebrate his heroes, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein,” Kelly said. While living for a few years in Schenectady, New York, Kelly said Pimentel “made even some of his like-minded friends nervous by his extremism.”
Pimentel “talked about killing US servicemen returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly US army and marine corps personnel. He talked about bombing post offices in and around Washington Heights and police cars in New York City, as well as a police station in New Jersey,” the police chief said. “We think what set him off was the elimination of Anwar al-Awlaqi,” Kelly added.
