Neighbors describe the Ashburn, Va., man charged with plotting to bomb Metro stations as a typical suburban father, but court documents depict him as would-be martyr who had obtained firearms and was training to conduct jihad.
Farooque Ahmed, 34, was arrested Wednesday and is accused of conducing surveillance and recording video of Metrorail stations in Virginia for government agents who posed as al Qaeda operatives.
A search warrant affidavit unsealed Thursday says Ahmed told the people he thought were terrorists that he “wished to fight in jihad himself, and that he has trained to do so using various firearms.” Ahmed purchased rifles and a shotgun and said he had been to a shooting range, the document says.
In a May meeting at a Virginia hotel with someone he believed was al Qaeda, Ahmed said he wanted to kill Americans in Afghanistan, according to the affidavit. When asked if he wanted to become a martyr, Ahmed replied, “of course.”
At a later meeting, Ahmed reportedly said he studied martial arts, knew knife and gun techniques, and could teach those skills to others.
The affidavit says the FBI learned in January that Ahmed and an unidentified associate were “inquiring about making contact with a terrorist organization in order to participate in jihad by traveling overseas to fight coalition forces” in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
FBI spokeswoman Lindsay Godwin declined to give further details about the associate.
Court records say Ahmed was planning a pilgrimage to Mecca next month.
Kenneth Troccoli, Ahmed’s federal public defender, declined to comment.
An indictment was unsealed Wednesday. Prosecutors say Ahmed gave footage of the Arlington Cemetery, Court House and Pentagon City stations to people posing as terrorists and suggested ways to cause the most destruction.
Neighbors said Ahmed and his wife generally kept to themselves.
They occasionally saw his wife, Sahar, dressed in a full hijab, carrying their young son in the neighborhood lined with white picket fences and lush green lawns.
Ahmed seemed like “your typical normal guy,” said Barbi Shires, who lives next door to his brick town house.
“I just can’t fathom why he would do this,” she said. “What’s the gain? He has a wife and an 18-month-old boy. I just don’t get it.”
Kristine Videgar, who lives around the corner from Ahmed, called the episode “pretty unnerving.”
“You can’t assume anything about anybody,” she said. “They seemed nice enough.”
Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, emigrated to the United States in 1993. He most recently worked as a contractor for the telecommunications company Ericsson.
Ahmed’s actions cast Muslims in a negative light, said Omar Ali, a Pakistan native who takes the Metro from the Court House station every day.
“I’m furious,” Ali said. “That’s not what our religion is about. He makes us all look bad.”
