Man Arrested For Showing Undercover FBI Agents How To Build, Detonate Bombs

Court filings unsealed Wednesday stated that an Arizona man was arrested by the FBI for demonstrating how to build a bomb and detonate it to undercover agents.

According to court filings, Ahmad Suhad Ahmad was charged with one count each of “distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices and weapons of mass destruction” for showing an undercover federal agent how to make explosive devices in a sting operation, CBS News reported.

Ahmad of Tucson, Arizona, told an FBI agent back in December 2016 that "he knew how to detonate a bomb by using a cellular phone." He also claimed "bombs were easy to make," and that he had learned how to do it "during the war in Iraq."

The informant claimed that he wanted to use explosives against a target in Mexico. Ahmad agreed and provided images of "explosive materials and instructions on his cell phone” and then sent a text message "with a bomb recipe written in Arabic."

In April 2017, Ahmad traveled to Las Vegas, brought bomb building tools with him, and met with other undercover agents. The agents had bought items from a list of bomb-making materials that Ahmad had provided them. Ahmad assembled two bombs in front of them and explained how to use them, even showing them “how to connect the blasting caps and where to place the C-4."

Ahmad was arrested in Tucson on Oct. 26 and is scheduled for a detention and preliminary hearing before Magistrate Judge Eric Markovich in U.S. District Court of Arizona on Friday.

"We look forward to our day in court. Mr. Ahmad is presumed innocent and we look forward to defending him against the charges,” Ahmad’s attorney, Walter Goncalves Jr., told CNN.

Court documents, however, do not explain why Ahmad was not arrested until almost two years after he allegedly first offered to show how to make and use bombs.

In a similar incident in September, a U.S. soldier was sentenced to more than 11 years imprisonment for manufacturing, possessing and detonating a chemical weapon in the Kisatchie National Forest adjoining the Fort Polk Army installation, Louisiana.

Ryan Keith Taylor, 24, a soldier at Fort Polk, detonated an explosive device containing chlorine gas on April 12, 2017 in the national forest. Soldiers nearby heard the explosions and rushed to the spot. They found the accused standing near his vehicle filming the explosion with his phone. The soldiers then questioned Taylor and reported the incident to military police.

Military police investigators arrived at the spot and collected samples. Taylor was detained and his vehicle was checked. During the search, remains of the explosive device and chlorine residue were found.