Washington:
A 20-year-old Saudi college student who was arrested Wednesday night on bomb charges in Texas wrote in his journal that he sought a student visa three years ago so he could carry out terrorist attacks inside the United States, according to an F.B.I. document released Thursday.
By the time that the student, Khalid Aldawsari, who attended community college in Lubbock, Tex., came to the attention of the authorities this month, he had obtained two of the three chemicals needed for a bomb and was researching potential targets -- including the Dallas residence of former President George W. Bush, the homes of three former military guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and dams in Colorado and California, an F.B.I. affidavit said.
Mr. Aldawsari's journal, which says "it is time for jihad," and his e-mail account also contained at least two semicryptic references to New York -- a plan to spend a week there as part of a to-do list that culminated in leaving car bombs in unidentified places during rush hour and a link to a Web site of feeds from the city's traffic cameras, the F.B.I. complaint said.
The New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said the department had been following the case from the beginning, adding that the plan "sure gives us cause for concern, but we are not surprised -- New York is at the top of the terrorist target list." A law enforcement official said Mr. Aldawsari had visited the city, but gave no details.
A North Carolina chemical supply company reported Mr. Aldawsari to the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Feb. 1, citing a suspicious order, the complaint said. Officials said that set off a fast-moving investigation involving hundreds of agents, prosecutors and analysts. The student is scheduled to appear before a federal judge on Friday.
"Yesterday's arrest demonstrates the need for and the importance of vigilance and the willingness of private individuals and companies to ask questions and contact the authorities when confronted with suspicious activities," said James T. Jacks, United States attorney for the Northern District of Texas.
Federal officials declined to discuss whether Mr. Aldawsari's student visa application raised any red flags. But Representative Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who leads the Judiciary Committee, condemned the immigration system for allowing him to enter the country -- comparing him to the hijackers in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, most of whom were Saudis with valid visas. "Until we crack down on our immigration laws that allow terrorists to enter the U.S., history will continue to repeat itself," Mr. Smith said.
The complaint says that Mr. Aldawsari complied with immigration rules by notifying the authorities each time he transferred to a different school.
Nail al-Jubeir, a Saudi Embassy spokesman, said more than 30,000 Saudi students were in the United States and he knew of no other Saudi student arrested here on terrorism charges since 2001. "We were informed about the arrest, and we're working closely with U.S. authorities," he said.
The complaint suggests that investigators have so far found no conspirators and no links to terrorist organizations, though his Facebook page listed several groups opposed to the Saudi monarchy. The F.B.I. document says he wrote in his journal that he wanted to found a terrorist group under the Qaeda umbrella to carry out attacks in the United States.
"I excelled in my studies in high school in order to take advantage of an opportunity for a scholarship to America," investigators said he wrote in Arabic. "And now, after mastering the English language, learning how to build explosives, and continuous planning to target the infidel Americans, it is time for Jihad."
Mr. Aldawsari came to the United States in September 2008. He studied English atVanderbilt University in Nashville, and transferred in August 2009 to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, and then to a nearby campus of South Plains College last month.
Mr. Aldawsari led a solitary life at Texas Tech, rarely speaking to other students, said three former roommates who requested anonymity because they feared association with him would hurt their careers. They said Mr. Aldawsari lived with them for a year while he studied chemistry.
He kept his food separate in a small refrigerator in his room and kept his room locked when he was out. He would often bang on the walls of his room in anger or frustration.
"He was just in his own bubble," said one 20-year-old roommate from Dallas.
He could often be heard talking loudly on the telephone in Arabic in the mornings, and in the afternoon he streamed Arabic television stations at a high volume.
He was not outwardly religious, the roommates said.
A Facebook page for Mr. Aldawsari says he is from Al Kharj, in central Saudi Arabia, and lists interests ranging from "STOP Israel's War Crimes in Gaza" and several Saudi dissident groups to Agatha Christie and zombies.
Mr. Aldawsari wrote in his journal that he was inspired by Osama bin Laden's speeches and that the 9/11 attacks had produced a "big change" in his thinking, the authorities said. The F.B.I. also said he wrote a blog, FromFarAway90, where posts in Arabic refer to war and distress in Palestine, infidels in the Islamic world and martyrdom.
The handwritten journal was also said to list "important steps," including obtaining a forged United States birth certificate; applying for a passport and driver's license; traveling to New York for a week; and renting cars in disguise, putting bombs with remote detonators in them and taking them to various places during rush hour.
Mr. Aldawsari was reported to the authorities twice this month. On Feb. 1, Carolina Biological Supply in Burlington, N.C., told the F.B.I. that he had tried to place a $435 order for phenol on its Web site the day before.
Phenol is explosive when mixed with sulfuric and nitric acids. Mr. Aldawsari had already managed to buy three gallons of sulfuric acid and about eight gallons of nitric acid at other places in December, the affidavit said.
Because Carolina Biological Supply would not ship phenol to a residential address, Mr. Aldawsari had to have his order sent to a freight firm in Lubbock. But the firm returned the shipment to North Carolina, and then reported it to the Lubbock police.
Later, after the supply firm, at the F.B.I.'s request, pressed Mr. Aldawsari to explain why he wanted the chemical, he angrily canceled the order. On Feb. 12, the affidavit says, he e-mailed himself procedures for extracting phenol from aspirin.
The authorities said he sent additional e-mails to himself listing "nice targets" and instructions for converting a cellphone into a detonator. One e-mail, titled "Tyrant's House," contained Mr. Bush's address in Dallas.
Mr. Aldawsari also searched on the Internet for rules on backpacks in Dallas nightclubs and looked at pictures of dolls, the F.B.I. said, suggesting that he may have considered nightclub attacks or concealing explosives.
The search of his apartment, the affidavit said, also found chemical lab equipment, a gas mask, a hazardous materials suit and Christmas lighting it said was suitable for bomb making.