Shihab Ahmed Shihab, The 52-year-old told an FBI informant that he wanted to bring at least four other Iraqis into the country through the Mexican border to carry out the plot, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court in Columbus. Ohio.
Two of the strike team members would be former Iraqi intelligence officers, while the others would be members of the Islamic State (IS) group or another Qatar-based hardline group that Shihab called “al-Raed.”
Shihab told the informant that they wanted to kill Bush, who ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, “because they believed he was responsible for the murder of many Iraqis and for the breakdown of the entire country of Iraq,” according to the file.
He told the informant that he was the cousin of the former IS chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadiand that he had killed Americans in the years after the invasion.
Shihab was taken into custody early Tuesday and was charged in federal court with an immigration felony and complicity in the attempted murder of a former US official.
Resident of Columbus, Shihab and the informant came to stake out Bush-related locations in Dallas, Texas, and discussed how to obtain weapons, security officer uniforms and vehicles to use in the plot.
He also offered to help a second FBI informant smuggle members of his family into the United States for tens of thousands of dollars.
Shihab came to the United States on a visitor visa in September 2020 and applied for asylum in March 2021 when his visa expired.
In 2003, when Bush was president, the United States led a invasion of Iraq by weapons of mass destruction that were never found.
The prolonged conflict caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many more.
Days ago, George W. Bush’s unconscious played a bad time: the former president erroneously described the invasion of Iraq as “brutal” and “unjustified” before correcting himself to say that he meant to refer to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Bush made the comments in a speech at an event in Dallas on Wednesday night, while criticizing the political system of Vladimir Putin’s government. “The result is a lack of checks and balances in Russia, and one man’s decision to launch a totally unwarranted and brutal invasion of Iraq,” Bush said, correcting himself and shaking his head. “I mean, from the Ukraine.”
The former president blamed the mistake on his age. The jinx caused some laughter among those present. “I’m 75 years old,” he added.
Source: Ambito

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