ISIS ‘plans’ to assassinate George W. Bush with ‘death squad’, search warrant revealed – World News

According to an FBI search warrant, former US President George W. Bush was attacked by an agent allegedly linked to IS for an assassination attempt in revenge for the Iraq war

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George W. Bush makes an embarrassing mistake

According to FBI papers, an agent suspected of being linked to ISIS was foiled in a plot to assassinate George W. Bush last year.

The US Secret Service Bureau filed a search warrant application March 23, which was unsealed in Ohio’s Southern District Court this week, detailing the case.

It comes after Bush made an embarrassing slip of the tongue when he criticized Vladimir Putin’s “unjustified and brutal” invasion of Iraq – where he meant to say Ukraine.

The ex-president’s home in Dallas, Texas, was even surveyed by the alleged conspirator in November 2021, with video captured as a “death squad” of compatriots was recruited and smuggled into the country across the Mexican border.

The FBI said it uncovered the scheme thanks to two confidential whistleblowers and infiltrated the suspect’s WhatsApp account.

The would-be assassin, based in Columbus, Ohio, is said to want to obliterate Bush for his killing of Iraqis and dismembering the country after the US invasion in 2003, the warrant says.

The suspect had been in the US since 2020 and had an asylum application pending.

No charges have been filed and it is unclear if he has been arrested, reports said forbes

Office of Bush chief of staff Freddy Ford told the publication, “President Bush has all the confidence in the world in the United States Secret Service and our law enforcement and intelligence communities.”

The case shows how federal investigators are still monitoring threats from ISIS, even though the group has been severely weakened in recent years.

And also that the FBI was able to bypass WhatsApp security despite claiming it was prevented from investigating serious crimes due to platform owner Meta’s use of encryption.

In November last year, the suspect asked one of the sources if he knew how to obtain “replica or fraudulent” police or FBI IDs or badges, according to the warrant.

He had also inquired about the possibility of smuggling the other conspirators out of the country the same way they came in once the assassination was complete.

The suspect was also said to have been interested in assassinating a former Iraqi general who had aided the US during the war and who he believed was living in the States under an assumed name.

The suspected conspirator said he was a member of the “Al-Raed” force, which until recently was led by a former Iraqi pilot stationed in Qatar until his death.

A conversation described in the warrant indicates that seven conspirators were sent on a mission to kill Bush.

The suspect himself was to “locate and monitor” Bush’s residences and “obtain firearms and vehicles to use in the assassination.”

According to FBI agents, he traveled to Dallas with one of the informants to videotape Bush’s home and allegedly the George W. Bush Institute.

The orchestrator is also said to have identified four Iraqi nationals in Iraq, Turkey, Egypt and Denmark – all alleged former members of the Ba’ath Party and now political exiles – with plans to smuggle them into the US for $15,000 each.

He would then have obtained Mexican visitor visas for the ISIS agents through one of the FBI informants before taking them across the border.

Seamus Hughes, associate director of the extremism program at George Washington University, told Forbes: “ It is clear that this was an elaborate counter-terrorism operation with many moving parts.

“It was both far-reaching and unique in its scope.”

He went on to say that this also proves that while breaking encrypted data is “labor intensive” it is “possible”.

Mr Hughes added: “Furthermore, we haven’t seen a plot of this magnitude in years.

“It shows that while domestic terrorism rightly requires a good counter-terrorism focus, the threats are not alone.”