Closed captioning of: FBI: 'Aspiring terrorist' targeting shopping mall
>>
again, in the morning paper.
>>>
again, tonight there is a new report in this country of so-called homegrown terrorism, an alleged attempt anyway. this time the american under arrest is a man from massachusetts charged with trying to join violent jihadist groups overseas. but again, there's more to this story, and our
justice department
correspondent
pete williams
is with us from our washington bureau tonight. pete, good evening.
>>
reporter: brian, the
justice department
says this is the case of a
u.s. citizen
who developed a strong hatred for america and repeatedly tried to put that anger into action. the
fbi
arrested 27-year-old tarek mehanna this morning outside boston, accusing him of traveling overseas five years ago hoping to join violent jihadist groups in the
middle east
. federal agents say he wanted to kill
american soldiers
in iraq, but they say his trip was a failure, that foreign terror groups repeatedly turned him down. and the
fbi
says in
2003
he and two other men discussed a plan to get automatic weapons and shoot up a u.s.
shopping mall
but when they could not get guns from the one person they contacted they abandoned that plan. he's also accused of talking about shooting u.s. officials visiting the
middle east
but the
fbi
say that never got beyond the discussion stage, brian.
>>
a lot of chatter that there was less than meets the eye in this story.
pete williams
in our washington bureau tonight. pete, thanks.
>>>
now to our exclusive reporting
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