By Ali Younes—Oct 15, 2016
US federal authorities have announced the arrest of three men charged with attempting to set off a bomb in northwest Kansas.
Tom Beall, acting US attorney, announced on Friday that the Kansas men were charged in a domestic terrorism plot to bomb an apartment complex in Wichita suburbs where several Somali immigrant families lived and worshipped.
The three men—identified by Beall as Curtis Allen, 49, Gavin Wright, 49, and Patrick Stein, 47—were arrested in Liberal on Friday morning.
Allen and Wright are Liberal residents. Stein lives in Wright and is a business owner in Liberal, Beall said.
He said the men belonged to a small right-wing militia group called The Crusaders.
The men planned to set off the bomb on November 9 so as not to affect the US presidential elections, which takes place a day earlier, according to federal investigators.
Nihad Awad, executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told Al Jazeera the plot was enabled in part by the anti-Muslim environment in the country created by the right wing of the Republican Party in general and the party’s presidential candidate, Donald Trump, in particular.
“Trump’s repeated anti-Muslim racist statements created an environment of hatred and bigotry against Muslims in this election year. Trump’s words encouraged domestic terrorist groups to commit acts of terrorism and violence against our community members,” he said.
Read more at Al Jazeera.
