U.S. border officials captured a Lebanese national on the southern border more than a week ago who told agents he was a member of the Hezbollah terrorist group planning to make a bomb in the United States.
The New York Post reported that U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 22-year-old Basel Bassel Ebbadi on March 9 near El Paso, Texas.
An internal Border Patrol document obtained by The Post designated Ebbadi’s apprehension as a “Significant Arrest.”
“El Paso Sector Intelligence Agents assigned to the Tactical Terrorism Response Team (TTRT) interviewed Basel Bassel EBBADI from Lebanon after he made terroristic threats to personnel at the EP Sector Hardened Facility,” the document said. “Post Miranda, Basel Bassel EBBADI claimed membership to a foreign terrorist organization.”
The document said that two days after he was arrested, medical staff was evaluating him and asked what he was doing in the U.S., to which he responded: “I’m going to try to make a bomb.”
He reportedly told U.S. officials that he had trained with Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Islamic terrorist group based in Lebanon, for seven years and was an active member involved in guarding the group’s weapons.
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He told officials that his training focused on “jihad” and killing people “that was not Muslim,” the report said. He was planning on making his way to New York.
The Post report was viewed tens of millions of times on X on Sunday and generated notable responses from conservative leaders.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) posted: “Biden’s open border is an open invitation for Iran-backed terrorists to infiltrate our homeland. This will only get worse until Biden secures the border.”