by James Gordon Meek, ABC News, Nov 20, 2013
An al Qaeda-linked terrorist, who was resettled in the U.S. as an Iraq War refugee after allegedly killing American soldiers, was caught on camera in Kentucky handling heavy weapons that the FBI said he believed would be sent to insurgents back in Iraq.
The 2010 video, obtained exclusively by ABC News, was part of a broader ABC News investigation into the flawed refugee vetting program, which officials said may have let “dozens” of terrorists into the country.
In the video, Waad Ramadan Alwan is seen expertly field stripping what the FBI identified as a Russian PKM machine gun. Other still images provided by the FBI from hours-worth of surveillance footage show Alwan and an accomplice, Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, handling a Stinger missile launcher and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher.
An FBI agent assigned to the sting operation that captured the video told ABC News that Alwan had bragged to an informant about killing American soldiers in Iraq. “He said he had them ‘for lunch and dinner,’” FBI Louisville Supervisory Special Agent Tim Beam said.
The FBI said that beyond sending the arms back to extremists in Iraq, Alwan spoke of targeting a specific American soldier in the U.S. and possibly attacking other homeland targets.
The weapons seen in the video, however, were supplied by the FBI after being rendered inoperable. Alwan and Hammadi were arrested in 2011 and later pleaded guilty to terror-related crimes.