United States authorities revealed that they arrested a California student, who is accused of being linked to extremist group Al Qaeda with the purpose of attacking the Los Angeles subway.
20-year-old Nicholas Teausant and born in Acampo, California, was arrested on the border between the United States and Canada, tentatively accused of supporting a foreign terrorist organization, reported AFP in a report published on Monday.
According to the quoted source, Teusant, a member of the National Guard, was arrested on Monday morning in Blaine, Washington and might face a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 dollars for the charges he faces.
When he was capture, the young man attempted to cross into Canada to travel to Syria and join Muslim rebels, according to a press release from the U.S. Justice Department the CBS had access to.
The same document details that Teausant planned to join an Islamic group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a splinter group of Al Qaeda to fight against the Free Syrian Army, backed by the west, which maintains a bloody war against the government of President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war that in March entered its third year.
The accusation act detailed that the suspect, converted to Islam, had exchanged messages with an FBI informant on how to obtain "fireworks" to attack the Los Angeles subway early this year, according to the AFP.
The informant put Teausant in contact with a "mentor", an undercover federal agent, who would help him join the extremist group. Finally, early this month the "mentor" blessed the man's travels and got into a train with him going towards Seattle on the night of Sunday, March 16.
Nicholas Teausant was arrested in Blaine station, south of Vancouver, by members of US Customs and Border Protection.
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