ADL today applauded law enforcement for thwarting a planned terror attack, with one of the potential targets being the Jewish community in the Southern California area.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Mark Steven Domingo, 26, of Reseda, a former U.S. Army infantryman with combat experience in Afghanistan, faces federal charges in an alleged terrorist plot in which he planned to detonate an improvised explosive device (IED) for the purpose of causing mass casualties.
“We commend federal and local law enforcement for apprehending the suspect. The Jewish community is still grieving following fatal shootings at the Chabad of Poway this weekend and at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh six months ago,” said ADL Los Angeles Regional Director Amanda Susskind. “We are grateful to law enforcement for working so diligently to thwart yet another terrorist attack.”
According to the criminal complaint, Domingo posted an online video professing his Muslim faith and, in an apparent reference to the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas Nevada, declaring, “America needs another Vegas event [that would give] them a taste of the terror they gladly spread all over the world.” Domingo allegedly further posted, following the attack on a mosque in New Zealand on March 13, “There must be retribution.”
As ADL documented in an April 2018 report, since 2002, 127 individuals have been involved in 98 domestic plots or attacks motivated by Islamist extremist ideology, 90 percent of whom were either U.S. citizens, lawful permanent or temporary residents, or in the United States with documentation at the time of their arrest. Of the 90 percent, 52 percent were U.S.-born.
“We commend and thank Nick Hanna, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Paul Delacourt, and Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore for their efforts to prevent another mass casualty event,” Susskind said.
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