[xtypo_dropcap]A[/xtypo_dropcap] man was arrested last Friday in Portland, Ore., after a car bomb failed to detonate near a tree-lighting ceremony.
According to the Portland FBI, and the U.S. Department of Justice, 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia and resident of Corvallis, Ore., was arrested and charged with “attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives)” with a car bomb during an annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony last Friday evening.Mohamud tried to detonate what he believed was an explosives-laden vehicle. According to the FBI and the Portland Police Department, Mohamud was the subject of a long-term undercover investigation and unbeknownst to him, the explosives in the vehicle were inert.
“The device was in fact inert; and the public was never in danger from the device,” said an FBI statement about the incident.
Mohamud is scheduled to appear in federal court in Portland on Monday, and is facing a maximum statutory sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine if he is convicted.
