Complaint in Case of Afghan Charged with Terrorism Raises Serious Questions

On October 8, the FBI filed a criminal complaint alleging that Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi — an Afghan national living in Oklahoma City — conspired and attempted to provide material support to ISIS, “a designated foreign terrorist organization”, with the ultimate aim of staging “a violent attack in the United States in the name of and on behalf of ISIS, which was planned for Election Day”. Paragraph 9 of that complaint, which describes Tawhedi’s entry into the country, is both curiously and vaguely worded, raising serious questions about why he was here at all — and whether he’s the only Afghan evacuee who poses a security risk.

“TAWHEDI Entered the United States”. Here is paragraph 9, in its entirety:

It is known to the affiant that TAWHEDI is a 27-year-old citizen of Afghanistan who resides in an apartment on Shartel Avenue in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (“the Shartel residence”). TAWHEDI entered the United States on September 9, 2021, on a special immigrant visa and is currently on parole pending adjudication of his immigration proceedings. TAWHEDI resides at the Shartel residence with his wife and their one child, who is approximately one year old.

While it may seem like a rather straightforward statement of (alleged) fact, from a legal point of view much of that paragraph doesn’t make sense — unless of course it means exactly what it says. Let me explain.

Afghan Special Immigrant Visas. Section 2, division F, title VI of Pub. L. 111-8, the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009, is captioned “The Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2009” (AAPA).

Section 602(b) of the AAPA, as amended, authorizes the issuance of special immigrant visas (SIVs) to certain Afghan nationals who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S. government, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), or any successor mission in Afghanistan for at least one year between October 7, 2001, and December 29, 2024.

To be eligible, an applicant must have “provided faithful and valuable service to the U.S. government, ISAF or successor mission as documented in a positive letter of recommendation; and experienced or are experiencing an ongoing serious threat” due to such employment.

While USCIS used to adjudicate those SIVs, as of July 20, 2022, that responsibility now falls solely upon the State Department. That said, USCIS still adjudicates applications for adjustment of status filed by Afghans who are in the United States and who have been approved for an SIV.

Vetting Concerns. Vetting of Afghan immigrants — and of Afghan evacuees who entered immediately after the calamitous U.S. withdrawal from the country in particular — has long been a concern.

The fall of the Afghan capital of Kabul on August 15, 2021, prompted the Department of Defense (DoD) to accelerate the evacuation of Afghan nationals to third-country facilities known as “lily pads” in the Middle East and Europe.

Those lily pads — which ran the gamut from warehouses in Qatar to beach resorts in Albania — provided the U.S. government with the opportunity to vet and screen those individuals before their onward transit to the United States.

The day Kabul capitulated, President Biden tapped DHS to spearhead the resettlement of Afghans in the United States, “Operation Allies Welcome” (OAW). Note that by the time the last U.S. troops left the country on August 30, the United States had evacuated 124,000 individuals, including around 6,000 U.S. citizens, from Kabul.

Approximately 77,000 Afghans were paroled into the United States when all was said and done (others already had status here that allowed them to enter), and every parolee was supposed to be screened, vetted, and inspected before being released into the United States.

Once they were inspected at a U.S. port of entry, they were either released or housed in “safe havens” where they were processed by USCIS and received additional security screenings.

That’s how it was supposed to work, at least.

In a September 2022 report, the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) concluded that CBP (which inspected those arrivals) sometimes lacked “critical data” (like names and dates of birth) “to properly screen, vet, or inspect Afghan evacuees”, and worse, “admitted or paroled evacuees who were not fully vetted into the United States”.

Consequently, the OIG found, “DHS paroled at least two individuals into the United States who posed a risk to national security and the safety of local communities and may have admitted or paroled more individuals of concern.” The emphasis is added so you keep that last clause in mind.

That followed a February 2022 report from the DoD OIG, which found that some Afghan parolees were not vetted by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) — under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) — using all the data DoD had at its disposal prior to their relocation to safe havens in the United States.

You see, half of the Afghan evacuees were enrolled by CBP at lily pads abroad, and their information was stored in the DHS Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) system and compared against the information in that system.

The other half were enrolled by DoD, and their information was stored in and screened against that department’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS).

DoD OIG explained that “both the DoD and the CBP enrollment information was then sent to the CBP National Targeting Center”, which forwarded the information to the NCTC to be checked against FBI terrorist databases to see whether there was any derogatory information or if additional scrutiny was required.

Once these checks were completed, the results were sent to CBP and to DoD’s National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC). NGIC notified operators at air departure points abroad when lists of approved evacuees were ready so that they could create flight manifests, and it was CBP’s job to tell airports in the United States that the parolees were coming.

The problem as identified by the DoD IG was that the DHS IDENT system — against which half of those parolees were checked — contained some, but not all, the information that was in ABIS, due to DoD agreements with “foreign partners” prohibiting the sharing of certain information in the DoD ABIS system outside of DoD.

There were many critics of that vetting process for Afghan parolees, but few as vociferous as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who explained after Tawhedi’s arrest was announced:

I was highly vocal about the need to thoroughly vet SIV applicants during — and in the weeks, months and years following — the Biden-Harris administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. But the White House, executive agencies and many of my Democratic colleagues in Congress were quick to dismiss those glaring alarms. … The number one job of our government is to protect its citizens. By hiding behind clerical excuses, refusing to take accountability and neglecting to address known vulnerabilities in vetting and resettlement processes, the Biden-Harris administration failed to prioritize Americans’ safety and, once again, projected weakness on the global stage.

“Intended to Target Large Gatherings” and “Expected to Die a Martyr”. As an NBC News report on the terrorism case explains, Tawhedi told interviewers after his arrest “that the attack was intended to target large gatherings and that he was expected to die a martyr along with a juvenile co-conspirator, described as an Afghan citizen with legal permanent resident status”.

According to the complaint, that minor green card holder entered in March 2018 on an SIV, lives in a separate residence with parents and five siblings — and is Tawhedi’s brother-in-law. It’s not entirely clear when their plan came together, but the conspiracy started at some point between August and October 7.

NBC News explains that the arrest occurred after Tawhedi and his junior confederate met with “two confidential human sources and an undercover FBI agent, who posed as business partners, at a rural location in the Western District of Oklahoma, to buy the rifles, 10 magazines and ammunition for the planned attack”.

When authorities reviewed Tawhedi’s Google searches as part of its investigation, they found he had “accessed, viewed, and saved ISIS propaganda”, including pictures of suicide vests, the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, and a picture of a headless Statue of Liberty in front of a burning New York City skyline (the cover of a book that reads “Endless War has disappointed the disbelievers” in Farsi).

There’s also an image of “a militant carrying an AK-style rifle over his shoulder” in front of “fire, smoke, rubble, and the United States Capitol building with the ISIS flag being flown above it” (that’s the cover of “The Trade of Jihad”, by the “Blind Sheikh”, Omar Abdel Rahman).

The complaint alleges Tawhedi and his co-conspirator attempted to sell their property, vehicles, and tangible assets beginning in August, and that Tawhedi made plans to move family members back to Afghanistan.

Tawhedi’s Entry. All of which brings me back to paragraph 9 in the complaint, the one that “explains” why Tawhedi is in the United States to begin with. It either makes no sense at all, or it makes perfect sense.

Had he “entered the United States on” an SIV as the complaint alleges, Tawhedi would have been admitted and would not be “on parole status” as it then continues. Parole can only, by statute, be issued to inadmissible applicants for admission — not to aliens admitted on visas.

Had he been admitted on the SIV, that carefully worded complaint would have said “Tawhedi was admitted to the United States on September 9, 2021” — not that he “entered” on that date.

Thousands of Afghans came to the United States while they were in the multi-step SIV application process, so maybe Tawhedi fell into that class. Possibly, except that paragraph 9 explains he “is currently on parole pending adjudication of his immigration proceedings”.

If he were paroled to await adjudication of his pending SIV and adjustment of his status application by USCIS, though, he wouldn’t be in “immigration proceedings”. He’d be in parole status awaiting the DOS and USCIS adjudication process.

For what it’s worth, NBC News reported on October 9 (based on unnamed sources) that Tawhedi only initially applied for SIV status after he entered the United States, that he was paroled after being vetted at an unnamed location, and that he was vetted a second time in connection with his SIV application — neither of which uncovered any “derogatory information”.

If all of that were correct, though, he wouldn’t be in “immigration proceedings”. At a minimum, he’d be in parole status awaiting the DOS and USCIS adjudication process, and as an Afghan national who’s been present since November 21, 2023, he’d be eligible for temporary protected status (TPS), and — absent some other crimes that’s aren’t listed — wouldn’t have been amenable to immigration proceedings.

Perhaps it’s simply inartful drafting (as the October 9 NBC News report suggests), but I have reason to doubt it. Trust me when I say DOJ — and the FBI in particular — flyspecks complaints filed in terrorism cases. This complaint isn’t just the idle ramblings of some FBI special agent: It’s almost definitely been through multiple layers of review, up to and including at the bureau headquarters and Main Justice levels.

In other words, it’s likely vague because DOJ wants it to be vague. But why would DOJ want a criminal complaint in a high-profile criminal case involving a planned election-day terrorist attack to be vague about such a key point: how the defendant got into the United States?

As noted, the mass evacuation of tens of thousands of unscreened Afghans during the debacle that was the fall of Kabul was and continues to be strongly criticized, not only by the administration’s political opponents in a hotly contested election year but also by non-partisan departmental watchdogs (like the DHS and DOD OIGs).

If — as is distinctly possible in this case — concerns were raised during the vetting of Tawhedi at a lily pad or elsewhere that he may not have the best interests of the United States at heart (as his Google searches and other allegations in the complaint suggest), he should never have been released. He plainly was released, however, which is why he was living on Shartel Avenue in Oklahoma City.

Why do I say that such concerns were “distinctly possible” in this case? Because that’s the only reason that he would be in “immigration proceedings”, that is removal proceedings before an immigration judge.

Ordinarily, Afghans with pending SIV applications who have been paroled into the country are simply waiting for their final DOS and USCIS adjudications — not in “immigration proceedings”.

It would behoove DOJ and DHS to clarify the FBI’s otherwise vague explanation of how Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi — an Afghan national charged with plotting a major terrorist attack — managed to enter the United States, and to do so as quickly as possible.

If any Afghan evacuees at large in this country are believed to pose a known terrorist risk, DHS and DOJ need to act and Congress needs to know about it as quickly as possible, before the disastrous Biden-Harris withdrawal from Afghanistan undermines our national security, and threatens any more American lives.