Federal prosecutors stressed that Hassoun was ultimately willing to plant a bomb that could kill or maim scores of people on a busy Saturday night. “While the source [informant] offered Hassoun the allure of terrorism for profit, Hassoun also appeared interested in violence as a goal in-and-of itself.”
Hassoun pleaded guilty to charges of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted use of an explosive device, and in 2013 was sentenced to 23 years in prison. The case was cited by Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on a list of terrorist plots foiled by federal authorities.
Feinstein also listed the case against Adel Daoud, a teenager from suburban Hillside accused in 2012 of trying to detonate a car bomb outside a downtown Chicago bar. By most accounts, Daoud has mental deficiencies. “He’s not the person with a complete mind,” his mother, Mona, told Human Rights Watch. “He didn’t talk until five. He was the last one of my kids to talk. He doesn’t even talk Arabic . . . like the rest of our family, because he’s slow.”
Daoud spent much of his free time online in his parents’ basement. In 2011, when he was 17, the FBI began keeping tabs on him after he posted and emailed comments about violent jihad and al-Qaeda. Two undercover informants began communicating with him a few months later.
“Daoud sought guidance regarding whether to carry out a terrorist attack in the United States,” federal prosecutors later alleged, and the informants provided it. One told Daoud he had a cousin in New York who was a terrorist and offered to put them in touch. Daoud agreed. Between June and September 2012, the “cousin”—who was an undercover agent—met with Daoud six times, often arguing, according to court records, that he thought it was important to attack Americans. Daoud agreed that terrorist attacks were justified because the United States was killing Muslims.