United States Attorney Nick Hanna, right, is joined by other law enforcement authorities during a news conference in Los Angeles on Monday, April 29, 2019. A terror plot by an Army veteran who converted to Islam and planned to bomb a white supremacist rally in Southern California as retribution for the New Zealand mosque attacks was thwarted, federal prosecutors said Monday. Mark Domingo, 26, an infantryman who served a combat stint in Afghanistan, was arrested by federal agents Friday while finalizing plans to plant a bomb at a Nazi rally that had been scheduled Sunday in Long Beach.(AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
LOS ANGELES (AP) – An Army veteran who converted to Islam and discussed launching various terror attacks throughout Southern California was arrested as he plotted to bomb a white supremacist rally as retribution for the New Zealand mosque attacks, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Mark Domingo, an infantryman who served a combat stint in Afghanistan, was arrested Friday after visiting a park in Long Beach where authorities said he planned to plant home-made explosive devices made with nail-filled pressure cookers in advance of a Nazi rally scheduled Sunday.
Domingo, 26, was arrested on a charge of providing material support to terrorists. A criminal complaint said he had been planning since March to “manufacture and use a weapon of mass destruction in order to commit mass murder.”
U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna told a news conference that Domingo supported violent jihad and spoke about becoming a martyr and of pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group if it established a presence in the United States.
“This is a case in which law enforcement was able to identify a man consumed with hate and bent on mass murder, and stop him before he could carry out his attack,” Hanna said. “The criminal case outlines a chilling terrorism plot that developed over the past two months and targeted innocent Americans that he expected to gather this past weekend.”