A 58-year-old aviation technician was taken into custody Friday morning for allegedly planning to drive a vehicle loaded with bombs into an area of the Mid-Continent Regional Airport. Authorities said he wanted to die as he set off the explosives.
Terry Loewen, from Wichita, Kansas, had been under investigation by the Wichita Joint Terrorism Task Force sine last summer. Loewman, who identifies as Muslim, alerted the FBI when he made claims online that he wanted to commit "violent jihad" against the United States on behalf of al Qaeda, the Associated Press reported.
"This incident is a reminder that we must remain vigilant and reaffirm our commitment to protecting this country and its ideals from those who wish to do us harm," U.S. Senator Jerry Moran from Kansas said in a statement.
Loewen planned the attack with undercover FBI agents disguised as his associates. He was apprehended as he tried to enter the airport with fake explosives he thought were real, Reuters reported.
"It was not a bomb that would ever explode," U.S. attorney Barry Grissom told Reuters. "At no time was the airport perimeter breached and at no time was any citizen or member of the traveling public in danger."
Loewen was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempting to support al Qaeda and attempting to damage property, the AP reported.
Reports say that for months Loewen studied the Kansas airport's layout in order to inflict the most amount of damage, the AP reported. Loewen told an undercover FBI agent he wanted to download information on holy wars and martyrdom, the AP reported.
Loewen wrote a letter addressed to his family meant to be delivered after his death. He wrote: "By the time you read this I will - if everything went as planned- have been martyred in the path of Allah...The operation was timed to cause maximum carnage + death," the AP reported.
Authorities are continuing their investigation into the thwarted attack.
"In the ongoing war on terrorism, the good guys won one today," Kansas Governor Sam Brownback said, the AP reported.
