The Afghan national who is charged with plotting an ISIS-inspired Election Day massacre on American voters is just one example of the “f–king disaster” vetting of process of asylum seekers during the Biden-Harris administration’s pullout from Afghanistan, according to sources and multiple government reports.
Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, reportedly worked for the CIA in Afghanistan before being welcomed into the US in September 2021 — weeks after the Taliban took over Kabul and American forces beat a hasty and disastrous retreat.
He was living in Oklahoma City on a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) when he began stockpiling AK-47 rifles and ammunition to carry out an ISIS-inspired attack on US soil, according to the Justice Department.
“They had no clue, they were just shoving them in tents. They had no organization so we had to start from scratch. And as that was happening, we were getting flights of about 500 to 700 people in a day,” a law federal enforcement source told The Post.
“The Afghanistan withdrawal will end up proving to be the worst thing that this administration did.”
Tawhedi is just one of 77,000 SIV applicants from the Kabul withdrawal who were paroled into the United States for a two-year period.
Technically, he and others in the program were required to re-up their parole if their cases after that. However, the Department of Homeland Security has failed to track the parole expirations of SIV applicants once they were in the country — meaning that there was no accountability if they stayed in the country illegally, according to a DHS Inspector General report published in May.
A federal watchdog later determined that the DHS “encountered obstacles to screen, vet, and inspect” the Afghan evacuees, adding that they lacked “critical data” for many of the individuals.
“As a result, DHS may have admitted or paroled individuals into the United States who pose a risk to national security and the safety of local communities,” the inspector general concluded.
When evacuees were boarding US planes on the tarmac in Kabul during the withdrawal, US officials weren’t screening them, a law enforcement source involved in the process told The Post.
And when they arrived on US soil at designated military bases for vetting, some of them just walked off the premises never to be seen again.
“Because these people were paroled into the country, they didn’t have to stay at the base, they could walk off and we couldn’t stop them,” the source said.
“And if you didn’t have them identified properly, then that was tough s–t. But that’s what this administration did. And it was horrible.“
The source’s assertions echo testimony made before the House Homeland Security committee in April by Simone Ledeen, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East.
“Those first couple of planes that took off from Kabul Airport were full of people who had not been vetted.”
Later vetting showed some were terrorists suspected on planting EIDs, or who showed up in US military databases as security threats, she said.
“I have very grave concerns about this,” Ledeen told the committee.
On Thursday, NBC News reported that Tawhedi was employed as a security guard for the CIA.
Other law enforcement sources told The Post that the feds believe Tawhedi radicalized himself online after arriving in the US.
While investigating Tawhedi’s online history, the FBI discovered “ISIS propaganda on his iCloud and Google account” and a video recorded on Tawhedi’s phone of him telling two children about “the rewards a martyr receives in the afterlife,” according to a criminal complaint.
In the video, Tawhedi stated that “martyrs will be exempted from the sufferings of the grave, placed in heaven, get married to 72 virgins, and receive a crown full of jewels,” according to the complaint.
Authorities also found a photo of man wearing a suicide bomber vest, an image of the Sept. 11, 2021, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and a portrait of ISIS big Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Tawhedi’s phone.
It was also discovered that Tawhedi was part of ISIS-aligned Telegram chats and that he gave at least $540 in cryptocurrency to a Syria-based “charity which fronts for and funnels money to ISIS.”
Tawhedi allegedly planned to conduct his attack with the help of a juvenile co-conspirator, who has also been arrested.
The scheme unraveled when the two terror suspects listed a Chrome book on Facebook Marketplace, where an undercover FBI agent found them and bought several electronics from them. The same agent later sold them the AK-47s they intended to use in their terrorist attack.
Tawhedi may have intended to commit the attack in Washington, DC. He had looked up and viewed the public webcams of the Washington Monument and the White House on July 25, 2024 — the same day the Moore, Okla. home was listed for sale.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the DOJ “foiled” Tawhedi’s alleged “plot to acquire semi-automatic weapons and commit a violent attack in the name of ISIS on US soil on Election Day.”
“We will continue to combat the ongoing threat that ISIS and its supporters pose to America’s national security, and we will identify, investigate, and prosecute the individuals who seek to terrorize the American people,” Garland said in a statement.
Tawhedi faces charges of conspiring and attempting to provide material support to ISIS, which could result in up to 20 years in prison.
