Boston Terror Suspect Allegedly Plotted to Kill Pamela Geller

Before abruptly changing his plans and allegedly deciding to slaughter police officers on the streets of Boston, Usaamah Rahim was reportedly plotting to behead Pamela Geller, the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant leader.

Authorities say a police officer and an FBI agent gunned down the 26-year-old private security guard, who had been under around-the-clock surveillance for weeks, when he lunged at them with a 15-inch military-style fighting knife in a drug store parking lot in Boston’s Roslindale neighborhood.

Shortly after the shooting, Rahim’s nephew David Wright, also known as Dawud Sharif Wright and Dawud Sharif Abdul Khaliq, was arrested in Everett, Mass. Wright, 25, was charged with conspiring with Rahim to destroy Rahim’s smartphone to obstruct an investigation.

The 6-foot-8, 400-pound Wright appeared in federal court Wednesday afternoon and, according to The Boston Globe, in a loud and clear voice told the judge that he and his uncle had plotted to behead a police officer.

The aborted attack sounds chillingly similar to the barbaric May 2013 slaying of a British soldier in the middle of a London street. The 25-year-old soldier was nearly beheaded by two men who, according to news accounts, hacked at his body “like a butcher attacking a joint of meat.” The men, who were convicted of murder a few months later, said they attacked the soldier for revenge for the West’s wars against Muslims.

The anti-terrorism task force had been recording Rahim and Wright’s telephone communications for weeks. When task force members approached Rahim Tuesday morning to question him he pulled one of at least two military-style fighting knives he had recently purchased through Amazon.com, according to an affidavit filed in federal court Wednesday morning by an FBI agent.

One of the officers, according to the affidavit, told Rahim to drop the weapon. Rahim refused and responded, “You drop yours,” and moved towards the officers, brandishing the knife.

He was then shot and killed.

“He was someone we were watching for quite a time,” Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans told reporters Tuesday. “The level of alarm brought us to question him today. I don’t think anybody expected the reaction we got out of him.”

Rahim, the Globe reports, is the brother of a well-known imam, who spoke out against terrorism after the Boston Marathon bombings.

On May 25, Rahim purchased a 15-inch long Ontario Spec Marine Raider Bowie fighting knife and a device used to sharpen knifes through Amazon, according to the affidavit. The next day, Rahim called Wright. The authorities were listening.

“I just got myself a nice little tool,” Rahim said. “You know, it’s good for carving wood and like, you know, carving sculptures…and you know…”

The men burst into laughter.

In guarded language, according to the affidavit, the men continued their conversation. Rahim told Wright about a plan he was involved in to kill a person outside of Massachusetts. The affidavit does not identify the person.

Before the fighting knife was delivered, the FBI intercepted and x-rayed the package, determining it contained a large knife. On May 27, Rahim purchased a second knife through Amazon, and both knives were delivered to Rahim’s home.

On Sunday, May 31, Rahim and Wright met with a third person on a beach in Rhode Island, “to discuss their plans” of killing and beheading someone out of state, according to the affidavit. At 5 a.m. Tuesday, however, Rahim called Wright and said he had changed the plan. He said he no longer planned to commit an attack out of state. Now he intended to “go after” the “boys in blue.”

“I’m just going to ah go after them, those boys in blue,” Rahim said in the conservation recorded by the anti-terrorism task force. “Cause, ah, it’s the easiest target and, ah, the most common is the easiest for me.”

Rahim told Wright that he planned to randomly kill police officers in Massachusetts either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Wright told Rahim to prepare his will. He also told him to delete everything on his computer and his smartphone, adding that he should smash it on the ground.

“Get rid of it, before anybody gets it,” Wright said, according to the affidavit. “Make sure it’s completely destroyed.”

“I will” Rahim said.

“Because, at the scene, at the scene, CSI will be looking for that particular thing and so dump it, get rid of that,” Wright said. “At the time you are going to do it, before you reach your destination you get rid of it.”

Rahim had other targets, police said, including Geller. Last month in Texas, two Muslim men were shot and killed by police when the men opened fire outside a contest sponsored by Geller that was being held to crown the best cartoon mocking the Prophet Muhammad. The gunmen never got past the parking lot.