The Afghan national who was arrested Monday for allegedly plotting an Election Day terrorist attack worked as a security guard for the CIA in Afghanistan, NBC News reported citing sources familiar with the matter.
Twenty-seven-year-old Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi was allegedly planning a “violent attack in the United States in the name of and on behalf of ISIS, which was planned for Election Day,” according to the criminal complaint filed against him. While the CIA has not publicly commented on the revelation, “sources familiar with [Tawhedi’s] work in Afghanistan say he would have had minimal interaction with Americans and he was not a CIA informant or a member of the U.S.-trained and armed paramilitary force known as ‘Zero Units,’” according to NBC News.
Tawhedi was allegedly planing the attack with his juvenile brother-in-law, who was described in the complaint as an Afghan citizen with legal permanent resident status.
Tawhedi entered the United States on Sept. 9, 2021 on “a special immigrant visa and is currently on parole status pending adjudication of his immigration proceedings,” the complaint states. Tawhedi was residing in Oklahoma. NBC News reports that “two U.S. officials familiar with the matter [say] the charging document is incorrect, and that Tawhedi entered the U.S. on what’s known as humanitarian parole. Officials say humanitarian parole generally entails far less screening than a Special Immigrant Visa.”
Tawhedi’s arrival came less than a month after the Biden-Harris Administration oversaw the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal that left 13 U.S. service members dead. Notably,
