'Jihad' Teen Charged in Chicago Bomb Plot

Undercover FBI agents arrested an 18-year-old American man who tried to detonate what he believed was a car bomb outside a downtown Chicago bar, federal prosecutors said today. Adel Daoud, a US citizen from the Chicago suburb of Hillside, was arrested last night in an undercover operation in which agents pretending to be extremists provided him with a phony car bomb. But the device was inert and the public was never at risk, officials said.

The FBI began monitoring Daoud after he allegedly posted material online about violent jihad and the killing of Americans. In May, two undercover FBI employees contacted Daoud and exchanged several electronic messages with him in which he expressed an interest in engaging in violent jihad in the US or abroad, according to an affidavit. Daoud set about identifying 29 potential targets, including military recruiting centers, bars, malls, and tourist attractions in Chicago. (More jihad stories.)