DALLAS — Two men were in custody Friday after each tried to blow up what they thought were vehicles packed with explosives outside a Texas skyscraper and an Illinois courthouse, authorities said.
The two cases were unconnected to each other and to the investigation that set off the most intense flurry of national terrorism warnings since the aftermath of Sept. 11.
Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, 19, a Jordanian who lives in Texas, appeared in court Friday after federal officials said he parked what he thought was an explosive-laden truck in a parking garage beneath the 60-story Fountain Place office tower in Dallas.
Michael C. Finton, 29, who also went by the name Talib Islam and idolized John Walker Lindh - the American-born Taliban fighter - was arrested Wednesday in Springfield, Ill., after federal officials said he attempted to detonate what he believed to be explosives in a van outside a federal courthouse in the Illinois capital.
In both cases, decoy devices were provided to the men by FBI agents posing as al-Qaida operatives. Both are charged with trying to detonate a weapon of mass destruction and face up to life in prison if convicted. Finton also is charged with attempting to murder federal officers or employees.
Smadi, who federal prosecutors said lived and worked in the north central Texas town of Italy, came to the United States in 2007 with his brother Hussein on student visas, their father, Maher Hussein Smadi, said in Jordan.
The FBI had been keeping tabs on Smadi since an undercover agent discovered him in an online extremist group, according to an affidavit in the case. Undercover agentscommunicated and met with Smadi over several months, posing as members of an al-Qaida sleeper cell, the affidavit said. The agents provided Smadi with what he believed was a car bomb but was actually an inert device, it said.
Smadi on Thursday parked a vehicle containing the device in a garage beneath the Dallas office tower and set the device's timer, the affidavit said. Smadi then met with an agent, who drove several blocks away and Smadi dialed a cell phone in an attempt to detonate the bomb, according to the affidavit, which said he picked the Fountain Place because it housed banks.
A similar scenario played out the day before in Illinois. Finton also had been closely monitored by federal agents including in the months leading up to his arrest, according to an affidavit in that case. It said an FBI agent who posed as an al-Qaida operative presented Finton on Wednesday with a van containing materials he described as explosive but which actually were harmless.
Authorities said the Texas and Illinois cases are not connected to that of Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old airport shuttle driver who federal officials allege received explosives training from al-Qaida and bought large quantities of hydrogen peroxide and nail-polish remover in a plot to build bombs for attacks on U.S. soil.
Information for this article was contributed by Mike Robinson, David Mercer, Jamie Stengle and Shafika Mattar of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 09/26/2009