US soldier arrested near Fort Hood 'admits to attack plan'

Naser Jason Abdo, who has been AWOL, held at jail near military base after police found him with possible bomb-making material

A US soldier arrested after police found him in possession of possible bomb-making material at a motel near Fort Hood, Texas, has admitted planning an attack on the military base, according to an army alert.

FBI special agent Eric Vasys said the soldier, who was absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was being held in a jail in the Texas town of Killeen, near Fort Hood, on an unrelated child pornography charge.

The soldier was identified as 21-year-old Naser Jason Abdo, originally from the Dallas area. He disappeared from Fort Campbell over the 4 July weekend, Bob Jenkins, a spokesman at the base said.

The army alert says Abdo "was in possession of a large quantity of ammunition, weapons and a bomb inside a backpack". Upon questioning, the alert says, he admitted to planning an attack on Fort Hood.

"Whatever threat Mr Nassar [sic Naser] posed yesterday or up until yesterday has been eliminated and mitigated, and there was nothing to indicate he was acting with anyone else," Vasys said.

Abdo was arrested on Wednesday after a "concerned citizen" reported that he had firearms and smokeless gunpowder in his Killeen motel room, Vasys said. "A search of his motel room revealed that he had some components which could be considered bomb-making materials."

Vasys said the FBI would charge Abdo with possessing bomb-making components and he would be transferred from Killeen police into federal custody. Vasys said there was nothing to indicate Abdo was "working with others."

In June, the US military designated Abdo a conscientious objector to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that status was put on hold after he was charged over child pornography in Kentucky.

Abdo applied for conscientious objector status in 2010 after he decided Islamic standards would prohibit his service in the US army in any war, military ! official s said.

An Oklahoma attorney who has represented Abdo said on Thursday he hadn't heard from Abdo in weeks and learned of the arrest from a Texas television station.

Fort Hood was the scene of a November 2009 massacre in which 13 people were killed and 32 others wounded.

Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan was charged with the shootings and is expected to face a court martial in March 2012.


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