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BOSTON (AP) -- A Massachusetts man and two friends tried and bootless to get into agitator training camps and again plotted to annihilate two prominent U.S. politicians and randomly shoot bodies at American arcade malls, authorities said Wednesday.
Tarek Mehanna, who recently accomplished at a Muslim academy in Worcester, was arrested early Wednesday at his parents' suburban Boston home. Mehanna was charged with conspiring with two other men - an American now in Syria and another man who is allied with authorities - to provide abutment to terrorists.
Ultimately, the leash never came abutting to pulling off an attack. Authorities say they never got the agitator training they sought - that the men told friends they were angry down because of their nationality, ethnicity or inexperience, or that the bodies they'd hoped would get them into such camps were either in jail or on a religious pilgrimage.
The men abandoned the capital attack plans afterwards their weapons acquaintance said he could find alone handguns, not automatic weapons.
The men acclimated code words such as "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for agitator camps, and talked extensively of their admiration to "die on the battlefield," according to cloister documents.
Mehanna, who has accomplished math and adoration at Alhuda Academy, fabricated a defiant cloister actualization hours afterwards his arrest. He banned to stand to hear the charge adjoin him and assuredly did - tossing his chair audibly to the attic - alone afterwards his father urged him to do so.
"This really, really is a show," his father, Ahmed Mehanna, said as his son was ! actualit y led away in handcuffs. When asked if he believed the charges adjoin his son, he said, "No, absolutely not."
Prosecutors said Mehanna worked with two men from 2001 to May 2008 on the conspiracy that, over time, intended to "kill, kidnap, batter or injure" soldiers and two politicians who were associates of the controlling annex but are no longer in office. Authorities banned to analyze the politicians and said they were never in danger.
Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Loucks said the men justified the planned attacks on malls because U.S. civilians pay taxes to abutment the U.S. government and because they are "nonbelievers," Loucks said. He banned to analyze the targeted malls.
Mehanna - who received a doctorate in 2008 from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston, where his father is a professor - allegedly conspired with Ahmad Abousamra, who authorities say is now in Syria.
Mehanna, 27, is actuality captivated without bail until his next cloister actualization on Oct. 30.
"I'm assured that the American bodies will put abreast their fears and instead rely on the fairness guaranteed by our Constitution," said his attorney, J.W. Carney Jr. "Mr. Mehanna is entitled to that."
Rola Yaghmour, 20, of Shrewsbury and her ancestors are friends with the Mehannas and she said she couldn't believe the new charges adjoin Mehanna, calling him a "good man."
"He's not going to go crazy in a mall. There's no way he would do article like that," she said. "I read it and I was laughing, and I was like, 'They have to be kidding.' Because there's no way he would do article like that. It makes no sense. I was in shock. That's not like him at all nor his family, annihilation of them at all."
Mehanna aboriginal was arrested in November and charged with lying to the FBI in December 2006 when asked the whereabouts of Da! niel Mal donado, who is now confined a 10-year prison sentence for training with al-Qaida to overthrow the Somali government.
Authorities said Wednesday that Mehanna and his conspirators had contacted Maldonado about getting automatic weapons for their planned capital attacks, but he told them he could alone get handguns.
Court abstracts filed by the government say that in 2002, Abousamra became frustrated afterwards again actuality alone to accompany terror groups in Pakistan - aboriginal Lashkar e Tayyiba, again the Taliban.
"Because Abousamra was an Arab (not Pakistani) the LeT camp would not accept him, and because of Abousamra's lack of experience, the Taliban camp would not accept him," Williams wrote in the affidavit.
Mehanna and Abousamra traveled to Yemen in 2004 in an attempt to accompany a agitator training camp, according to cloister documents.
Mehanna allegedly told a friend, the third abettor who is now allied with authorities, that their trip was a abortion because they were unable to ability bodies affiliated with the camps.
Abousamra said he was alone by a terror group when he sought training in Iraq because he was American, authorities said.
