Feds Bust Chicago Man Seeking to Kill 'Infidels'

Chicago resident Shaker Masri was planning to fly to Somalia yesterday to join a militant group and train as a suicide bomber but the FBI got to him first, authorities say. Masri—a US citizen born in Alabama—discussed his travel plans and his desire to blow up "infidels" with a work colleague who was actually an FBI informant who had been ordered to befriend him, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Masri—who praised radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki—told the informant that he planned to join al-Shabab and al-Qaeda and that he had already made contact with recruiters, federal officials say. "There is growing concern of this recruitment in the US,” a terrorism expert tells the Christian Science Monitor. Masri "was obviously not very bright. But for every one you catch, how many out there do you not catch?" (More Shaker Masri stories.)