What caught my eye was the way that the news described this terrorist:
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force recently saved Times Square from being the target of a likely domestic terror attack.
I thought, huh. Ashiqul Alam is a domestic terrorist? So I followed the thread.
The FBI defines international terrorist as follows:
International terrorism: Perpetrated by individuals and/or groups inspired by or associated with designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations (state-sponsored).
–for example, the December 2, 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, CA, that killed 14 people and wounded 22 which involved a married couple who radicalized for some time prior to the attack and were inspired by multiple extremist ideologies and foreign terrorist organizations.
The news says this about Alam:
Alam Praised Other Terrorists
While authorities described Alam as a “lone wolf,” they stressed he admired terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, terrorist leaders such as Osama Bin Laden. The New York Timesreported that Alam told the undercover agent “(Osama bin Laden) did what he is supposed to do,” and added, “Now it’s up to us.”
“The defendant made a number of statements of admiration for various terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,” court documents also revealed.
Alam told the undercover agent that he wanted to see the “flag of Islam on the Twin Towers or Empire State Building”
That sure sounds like an international terrorist, not a domestic terrorist.
So what would drive the media to call him a domestic terrorist?