Amine el- Khalifi, the plan to attack the U.S. Capitol

Northern Virginia- Amine el-Khalifi entered the U.S in 1999 from Morocco with a tourist visa. The visa expired after a year and he staid illegally in the U.S. working in several types of jobs, El-Khalifi never applied for the citizenship or tried to renew the tourist visa.

Undated photo of  Amine el-Khalifi

He came into the radar because several investigations conducted by the FBI. The Federals were investigating terrorist suspects. One of them was el-Khalifi, who called the attention of the agents after a conversation he had with an undercover FBI agent. In this conversation he said he had the intention to attack the U.S.

After this, the FBI started to get more in touch with him. FBI agents made him believed they were from Al-Qaeda and introduced him to “Housein,” a member of Al-Qaeda, when actually he was a FBI undercover agent. “Housein introduced el-Khalifi to “Yusuf,” a top member of Al-Qaeda, of course, he was a top federal agent.

The security forced involved wanted to know if el-Khalifi was working alone so they started to arrange meetings with him. Even, Housein, Yusuf and el-Khalifi tested guns and bombs. They discuss what the target was going to be, a restaurant in Washington were U.S. generals and admirals used to go, some federal buildings, but they decided that the best target was going to be the Capitol.

They prepared the attack, el-Khalifi was going to break through the security of the Capitol with a gun, killing the first guards and then once inside he will detonate the bomb on his vest. He even said to Housein to install a remote control in the vest, so, if he was captured, Housein was going to be able to set the bomb off.

The idea was at least, kill 30 people.

Amine el Khalifi, 29, was captured when he was heading to the Capitol with a inoperative gun and a vest with, what he though, it was a vest with explosives. There were no explosives in the vest and the gun was useless and the public was never put in danger.

No details of the investigation were giving but apparently Amine el-Khalifi  was working alone.