U.S. Soldier Admits to Planning Attack on Fort Hood

A U.S. soldier who has been absent without leave since early July was arrested Wednesday in a motel room hear Fort Hood in Texas where FBI officials announced Thursday that he had been found with guns and bomb-making materials. The AWOL soldier admitted to planning an attack on the base, an Army alert said Thursday.

“Concerned citizens” in the area near Fort Hood, the same Army post where 13 people were killed in a shooting spree in 2009, alerted local police.

FBI officials said there was no evidence that Naser Abdo, the 21-year-old soldier who also happens to be Muslim, was working with others, and that any threat the young soldier once posed is now over. –BF

The Associated Press via The Wall Street Journal:

The infantry soldier, whose hometown the military lists as Garland, Texas, had applied for conscientious objector status last year, saying his religious beliefs would prohibit his service in any war. A military review board recommended this spring that he be separated from the Army.

The discharge was delayed after Pfc. Abdo was charged with possessing child pornography. A military hearing last month recommended he be court-martialed. He has said he thought he was charged with a crime because he was seeking to leave the Army as a conscientious objector.

Read more