The Philadelphia district attorney's office said Wednesday a local teen arrested last year as part of an ongoing terror investigation may have been plotting to bomb the city's Pride parade.
Muhyyee-Ud-din Abdul-Rahman, now 18, was 17 when he was arrested in August 2023. Although a juvenile at the time of his arrest, Abdul-Rahman is being prosecuted as an adult.
Authorities said that after his arrest, Abdul-Rahman told investigators he wanted to travel to Syria to join two groups known as Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad and Hay'at Tahrir al Sham. The United States has designated KTJ as a global terrorist organization and says it's affiliated with al-Qaida.
First Assistant District Attorney Robert Listenbee said Wednesday, "The defendant, who had a scholarship to attend college as a wrestler, decided that he wanted to become a bomb-maker," NBC News reported.
Listenbee said, "He wanted to leave America and go to Syria an join a terrorist group. He developed bombs in his home and tested those bombs 12 to 20 times in his backyard and in the woods nearby."
Authorities also said that based on his online searches, Abdul-Raman may have been planning to target the Philadelphia Pride Parade, as well as infrastructure sites like power plants and American military bases.
Listenbee said Abdul-Rahman told law enforcement officials in interviews that he was against homosexuality and that it is "pressed upon children in the United States."
He's facing charges of possessing weapons of mass destruction, criminal conspiracy, arson, and related offenses. Officials said Abdul-Rahman, who's being held on $5 million bail, has not entered a plea.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Kate McManus ✉
Kate McManus is a New Jersey-based Newsmax writer who's spent more than two decades as a journalist.
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