Man tried to set off bomb in downtown Chicago – but it was an FBI ploy, feds say

An Illinois man was sentenced to prison after officials say he attempted to detonate a bomb in downtown Chicago.

On Sept. 14, 2012, Adel Daoud tried to set off what he thought was a 1,000-pound car bomb near a bar in downtown Chicago, according to a July 19 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. However, it was actually a fake bomb planted by FBI agents, officials said.

In May 2012, Daoud, who was 18 years old at the time, began communicating with two people online and told them he had “interest in engaging in violent jihad,” according to a criminal complaint.

However, Daoud didn’t know the two people he was talking to were undercover FBI agents who were investigating him after coming across online posts he made.

Between May and June, Daoud tried to decide if he should carry out a terrorist attack in the United States and asked the two people for guidance, according to the complaint.

In June, one of the undercover agents told Daoud about a “cousin” who was an operational terrorist, the complaint said. Daoud began to meet with this person, not knowing they were another undercover FBI agent.

During their communication, Daoud “selected, researched, and surveilled a target for a terrorist attack” in Chicago, according to the court documents. The explosive device would be provided by the undercover agent posing as the cousin.

“Adel was a kid when the FBI began talking to him online a kid who was sheltered and had never lived outside of his parents’ home,” Quinn Michaelis, who was appointed as a standby attorney for Daoud, told McClatchy News in an email. “The FBI then put these older men in his life who wanted to talk him and encourage his beliefs.”

On the day of the planned attack, Daoud met with the undercover agent and they drove to downtown Chicago where Daoud picked up a Jeep with the dud bomb inside, according to the complaint. He then drove the Jeep to a bar, got out and walked one block away, officials said.

Daoud tried to detonate the explosive device twice, officials said. He was then arrested.

“If Adel’s case went to trial today, I think a jury would be more concerned and alarmed about what the FBI did in this case than they might have been in 2012,” Michaelis said. “The prosecution here has done more to solidify Adel’s belief about the government’s mistreatment of Muslims than anything he watched online before his arrest.”

In 2019, Daoud was originally sentenced to 16 years in federal prison, officials said. However, the U.S. Attorney’s Office appealed that sentence and a new sentencing hearing was ordered.

Daoud represented himself through the appeals case, documents show. McClatchy News was unable to reach Daoud for comment.

Once incarcerated, Daoud was also accused of turning to a cellmate for help to arrange for “a violent gang member” to kill the undercover FBI agent who investigated him, officials said. However, the plan wasn’t carried out.

In a third case against Daoud, he is accused of assaulting another inmate who drew what Daoud believed to be an “insulting picture of the prophet Mohammad” in 2015, according to officials.

U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly sentenced Daoud to 27 years in prison followed by a lifetime of court-supervised release.

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