ISIS plot to assassinate George W. Bush broken up: report
Shafaq News/ The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) uncovered a plot by an alleged ISIS operative to assassinate former President George W. Bush, Forbes reported Tuesday, citing an FBI search warrant.
The alleged plot was uncovered after the suspect revealed information about his plans and asked a confidential FBI source to “obtain replica or fraudulent police and/or FBI identifications and badges” that would be used in the assassination, the report added.
The suspect asked a second FBI source if there was a way to smuggle the co-conspirators out of the U.S. once their operation was complete, according to a March 23 search warrant unsealed in federal court in Columbus, Ohio.
Forbes published the search warrant as part of its report.
The alleged plot would have involved at least seven ISIS members. Forbes reported that the warrant said the suspect’s role was “to locate and conduct surveillance on former president Bush’s residences and/or offices and obtain firearms and vehicles to use in the assassination.”
The suspect, along with the FBI informant, also managed to record a video of the former president’s residence, and took footage at the George W. Bush Institute, the report added, citing federal agents.
In a statement to The Hill, Bush’s Chief of Staff Freddy Ford neither confirmed or denied the alleged plot and said that “President Bush has all the confidence in the world in the United States Secret Service and our law enforcement and intelligence communities.”
The FBI did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
Bloomberg reported that the search warrant, which was unsealed last month in federal court in Columbus, has been resealed.
The media outlet added that a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Cincinnati, FBI Special Agent John Ypsilantis, said in the filing that the conspirators “wished to kill former president Bush because they felt that he was responsible for killing many Iraqis and breaking apart the entire country of Iraq.”
