Questions surround Florida man charged in plot to bomb a 9/11 memorial event in KC

Would-be terrorist or Internet troll? And why target Kansas City?

The charges against a 20-year-old Florida man surrounding an alleged plot to bomb a 9/11 memorial event in Kansas City look to turn on his true motivation in online conversations about homemade explosives.

They also raise the notion of whether a Midwestern city holds any particular allure for potential terrorists.

Court documents released Thursday by federal prosecutors contend Joshua R. Goldberg portrayed himself as a jihadist living in Australia under the aliases “AusWitness” and “Australi Witness.”

His online activity drew the attention of U.S. law enforcement agencies and the Australian Federal Police.

One source in Australia told police there that Goldberg was all talk — a troll and perpetrator of online hoaxes. But prosecutors say his online calls for jihad may have helped inspire an attack earlier this year in Garland, Texas.

Someone using the Australi Witness name on Twitter called for attacks on an anti-Muslim gathering in Garland on May 3 and posted a map of the event’s location.

Two armed men later assaulted the event, opening fire before they were shot to death by police. One gunman had retweeted a message from Australi Witness on the day of the attack, according to the documents.

A month later, in statements posted online, Australi Witness vowed to work with others on more attacks.

“I have dedicated my life to striking fear into the hearts of the kuffar” — a derogatory term for non-Muslims — “and coordinating acts of jihad around the world,” according to the documents.

He also claimed to be a computer expert police couldn’t catch.

“Chase me all you want,” he allegedly wrote, “but you will never find me.”

Yet in late July, a confidential source working at the behest of the FBI began communicating with the person posing as AusWitness.

After AusWitness provided his Twitter account to the source, the FBI traced its IP, or Internet protocol, address to Goldberg’s Florida home, the documents state.

The conversations between the AusWitness and the confidential source continued almost daily until Thursday, court documents allege, when the FBI served a search warrant on the home of Goldberg’s parents in Orange Park, Fla., and arrested him.

In the conversations with AusWitness, the source said he wanted to carry out an attack in the United States.

On Aug. 19, Goldberg allegedly asked whether the source had any bombs ready. The source said he didn’t know how to make bombs and, according to the allegations, Goldberg promised guides for building them.

Five websites containing bomb-making instructions were sent to the informant, and FBI experts concluded they could be used to construct functioning explosives.

When discussing a target for a bomb attack, Goldberg asked the source where he lived. The source said he lived near Kansas City.

A few days later, Goldberg told the source he had found “the perfect place,” a stair climb event on Sept. 13 in Kansas City marking the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Goldberg allegedly instructed the source to pack the explosive device with nails or other sharp objects dipped in rat poison.

“There’s going to be chaos when it goes off,” he allegedly told the source. “Shrapnel, blood and panicking kuffar will be everywhere.”

Beginning Aug. 20 and continuing until his arrest, the FBI watched Goldberg’s house in Florida.

After his arrest, the documents allege, Goldberg admitted to providing the bomb-making information to the source and said he believed the person intended to carry out an attack.

But he also said he intended to contact authorities before the bomb was detonated so he could take credit for stopping the attack.

Goldberg made his first appearance on the charges Thursday in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville, Fla.

He was ordered held in custody pending a detention hearing Tuesday. The federal public defender was appointed to represent him but did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The source who talked to Australian police about his online conversations with Goldberg said he asked if he was concerned that “some of these jihadi nutcases might actually kill somebody at your behest.”

Goldberg allegedly replied by dismissing them as “keyboard warriors,” according to the documents.

Terror analysts and law enforcement say the case does little to suggest Kansas City poses a particularly tempting target. After all, the Kansas City connection to the case was only because the FBI source said that was the closest city to where he lived.

Rather, they said Kansas City likely ranks no more or less attractive to terrorists than other midsize cities, although that might be changing. Random factors such as where attackers live or the territory they know best are more likely to decide what cities are attacked.

“These tend to be low-level things where you have people who are relatively unsophisticated in their tactics, preparation, their abilities,” said Mayer Nudell, a security consultant and adjunct instructor at St. Louis-based Webster University. “They hit what’s close and easy.”

The Boston Marathon bombers, for instance, were from Boston. Nudell said Kansas City might seem a likely target if a large convention or a high-profile ballgame were in town. It’s also a transportation hub, home to scores of federal offices.

But, experts said, virtually any city of size would offer similar targets.

“It’s more about the convenience of the terrorist than a particular target,” said Jeff Lanza, a former FBI agent who now speaks professionally about security issues. “Just because we’re out in the Midwest doesn’t mean we’re safe. Kansas City is as much a target as any other place where there might be a gathering of large people. So are a lot of other places.”

Still, a strike on flyover country could be seen as a particularly powerful blow to the American psyche, said Sgt. Robert Wynne, the deputy director of the Kansas City Regional Terrorism Early Warning Interagency Analysis Center.

“Who knows what’s inside somebody’s head?” he said. “Kansas City is right in the heart of America. Psychologically, maybe that could mean something. … It depends on the motivation of the individual.”

Al-Qaida had long pressed for big attacks on even bigger targets. But, said terrorism analyst Jeffrey Bale, the so-called Islamic State encourages its followers to hit whatever they can, wherever opportunity allows.

Since 2014, some 60-plus cases have arisen in the United States against people declaring they acted on behalf of the group that’s overrun large areas of Syria and Iraq. Those attacks are mostly small-scale and scattered across the country.

Bale, who teaches at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said bloodshed in off-the-radar locations could go a long way to creating a broad sense of terror.

“If the attacks are limited to places like New York or Boston, most of the country could go on thinking it’s safe,” he said. “But if they strike in smaller cities or towns, people would be thinking, ‘Wow, I’m not safe anywhere.’”

Kansas City terror cases

▪ A Kansas man was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for plotting a suicide bomb attack aimed at causing “maximum carnage” at a Wichita airport.

Terry L. Loewen, a 60-year-old man from Wichita, pleaded guilty in June to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. He was arrested in December 2013 following a months-long sting operation in which two FBI agents posed as co-conspirators.

Loewen drew the attention of FBI agents in late May 2013, when he became a Facebook friend of an individual who regularly posted information supporting violent jihad, or holy war, according to court documents. Authorities said agents became concerned after looking through Loewen’s own Facebook activities. An online undercover agent contacted him and offered to introduce him to someone who could help him engage in jihad.

At the time, Loewen was an avionics technician for Hawker Beechcraft’s facility at Mid-Continent Airport, now called Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport. He was arrested Dec. 13, 2013, while using his employee badge to bring the fake bomb onto the tarmac.

▪ An alleged plot to kill soldiers at Fort Riley in east-central Kansas led to charges against first one man and later against another for working with the first.

John T. Booker Jr., 20, of Topeka, was charged in April with planning a suicide attack at Fort Riley. Prosecutors alleged he told an FBI informant he wanted to kill Americans and engage in violent jihad on behalf of the so-called Islamic State, according to a criminal complaint.

Authorities arrested Booker, also known as Muhammed Abdullah Hassan, as he was trying to arm what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb outside the Army post, according to prosecutors. He is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, among other things. A Muslim cleric who was counseling Booker has since said the man was mentally ill and acting strange before the arrest.

Later, authorities charged 28-year-old Alexander E. Blair of Topeka, contending he provided defendant Booker with money to rent a storage unit to hold components of an explosive device.

▪ A Cuban refugee who called police in October 2013 about threats to contaminate the water supplies of Kansas City and other cities was eventually sentenced to two years in federal prison.

Manuel Garcia, 70, had previously been sent to prison for making a bomb threat against the federal courthouse in Kansas City.

Garcia called Kansas City police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, claiming that the water supplies in Kansas City, St. Louis, Wichita and Topeka would be contaminated within 10 to 15 days. Garcia wanted $10,000 and a grant of immunity to help authorities locate two men who he said planned to dump 55-gallon drums of deadly chemicals into the water.

The calls prompted Kansas City police to increase helicopter surveillance around water treatment plants for two weeks and assign snipers and extra patrol teams. Similar responses occurred in the other threatened cities.

This story was originally published September 11, 2015 at 10:22 AM with the headline "Questions surround Florida man charged in plot to bomb a 9/11 memorial event in KC."