A Florida man was arrested on Wednesday over an alleged plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to “reset” the U.S. government, according to unsealed documents.
Harun Abdul-Malik Yener, a South Florida resident, was charged with attempting to use an improvised explosive device to damage or destroy a “building used in interstate or foreign commerce,” according to court documents.
FBI agents started probing Yener in February after getting a tip that he was storing bombmaking schematics in an unlocked Coral Springs, Fla. storage unit. After getting a search warrant, FBI agents found “bombmaking sketches, numerous watches with timers, electronic circuit boards and other electronics” that could be utilized to make an explosive, the criminal complaint said.
Yener told law enforcement officials in early March that he previously tried to join a “domestic extremist group” and had experience with making “rockets” and “bombs.” He also told agents that he considered joining ISIS and fighting for them in 2015 in Iraq but decided not to because he thought that ISIS would not end up achieving “their objectives,” according to the complaint.
He told an FBI undercover employee that he wanted to deploy and detonate his improvised device on the New York Stock Exchange. The target date to carry out the bombing would be Nov. 18, Monday, wanting to “attain a ‘reboot’ and/or ‘reset’ of the United States government.”
When planting the explosive device, Yener planned to wear a disguise and record a message to be sent to news media, saying the explosion “like a small nuke went off” and that “[a]nything outside” the building “will be wiped out” and “anything inside there would be killed,” the Florida resident said, according to the complaint.
On Nov. 12, Yener made multiple audio recordings and allegedly discussed having them sent to NBC News the same day or a day after the bombing. At the time, he allegedly told an undercover agent, “I feel like Bin Laden,” according to investigators.
