'Suicide bomb plot' girls arrested by FBI
Two teenage girls from Bangladesh and Guinea were arrested on charges of immigration violations after the FBI claimed that they planned to become suicide bombers and posed a threat to US security, according to a report.
The two girls, both 16 and living in New York City, were arrested on March 24 and were being held in a family detention centre in Leesport, Pennsylvania, The New York Times reported, quoting a government document provided by a federal agent.
According to the document, the FBI found the girls posed ”an imminent threat to the security of the US based upon evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers,” the Times said.
The evidence was not described in the document.
A spokesman for one of the girls’ families said the accusation was false and that the government had probably misinterpreted a school essay written by the girl.
Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the US Department of Homeland Security, would confirm only that two juveniles had been arrested on “administrative immigration violations” and remained in ICE custody, the Times said.
The girls – one from Bangladesh, one from Guinea – were reportedly living in the US illegally.
The Times said that one federal official, not connected with the FBI, said “no evidence has been found” that a suicide bombing plot was in the works. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the case involves a pending legal matter, the newspaper said.
Adam Carroll, a community activist with the Islamic Circle of North America, representing the parents of one of the girls, told the Times that one of the girls had been arrested after she stopped attending public high school in September. Federal immigration agents investigated her home and discovered an essay about suicide and Islam on her computer, Carroll said.
The case seemed to be “an investigation that’s gotten out of hand, like a lot of other so-called terror investigations,” Caroll told the paper.
