Photo: U.S. Border Patrol
A Hezbollah member who was caught at the U.S. border while attempting to illegally enter the country admitted plans "to make a bomb," according to ICE documebnts obtaied by the New York Post.
Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, of Lebanon, was caught by the U.S. Border Patrol near El Paso, Texas, on March 9 and told officers, "I'm going to try to make a bomb," when asked what he was doing in the U.S. Ebbadi also admitted to having been trained by Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist group, for seven years and serving as an active member guarding weapons locations for an additional four years, during a separate sworn interview, the documents obtained by the Post confirmed.
Ebbadi said his training focused on "jihad" and killing non-Muslims and he fled Lebanon because he "didn't want to kill people," but added that "once you're in, you can never get out." The 22-year-old told officers that he intended to go to New York before moving around the United States prior to being detained.
Ebbadi didn't have documents when he entered the United States, claiming he was robbed at knifepoint while in Costa Rica and used a fake birthday and name in Sweden, Panama and Ecuador, where he said his father lives, earlier this year, according to the documents obtained by the Post. Ebbadi was placed into isolation and interviewed with the Tactical Terrorism Response Team (TTRT) after making "terroristic threats to personnel" before being marked for deportation, according to the documents, which didn't specify which country he would be returned to.