WASHINGTON – With police on heightened alert in Times Square and elsewhere around the nation, the FBI announced the arrest of a 25-year-old man in upstate New York for allegedly providing material support to Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and planning to "kill innocent civilians on New Year's Eve in the name of the terrorist organization."
Emanuel L. Lutchman, who was arraigned Thursday before a federal judge in Rochester, N.Y., said an ISIL operative in Syria had encouraged him in e-mails to try to kill thousands of people in the Rochester area, according to court records.
According to court records, Lutchman spent much of the past two months in contact with an ISIL operative overseas, meeting with three FBI informants around Rochester, acquiring knives and other assault tools at a Wal-Mart, and hoping to win a spot with the militant group in Syria.
A former convict, Lutchman allegedly told FBI informants that joining ISIL was a "dream come true." He said, according to federal court records, "I will take a life. I don't have a problem with that."
The case caps a year that saw the FBI launch terrorism-related investigations in every state and jurisdiction, and make more than 60 arrests of alleged supporters of ISIL or other extremist groups.
The year also saw three domestic incidents that the FBI considered terrorism.
On May 3, two armed men were shot and killed as they prepared to attack a "Draw Muhammad" contest in Garland, Texas. On July 16, a gunman was killed after he had shot and killed four Marines and a sailor in Chattanooga, Tenn. And on Dec. 2, a married couple — Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik — were killed in a shootout with police after they had shot and killed 14 people and wounded 22 others in San Bernardino, Calif.
Like Lutchman, court records claim, Farook and Malik were radicalized on the Internet. Unlike Lutchman, however, they were inspired by ISIL but not specifically directed to carry out an attack.