Daily Broadside | Another Tip to the FBI and Another Missed Opportunity to Take Down a Terrorist

You might remember that earlier this month I wrote about a terrorist attack in Fargo, North Dakota, that got very little national attention. The attacker, Mohamad Barakat, killed one police officer and wounded two others. He had an AK-47, 1,800 rounds of ammunition, explosives, a grenade and propane tanks in his car and was apparently on his way to a large event in the city center where he planned to kill lots of people.

I bring this back up because, wouldn’t you know it, the FBI had received a tip about this guy long before he went on his murderous rampage.

The FBI received a tip about the cop-killing, Syrian gunman plotting a mass casualty attack in Fargo in 2021, DailyMail.com can reveal.

The gunman, Mohamad Barakat, 37, was shot dead by Fargo police officer Zach Robinson on July 14.

Before finally being brought down, Barakat shot and killed rookie cop and Afghanistan veteran Jake Wallin, 23.

The article goes on to talk about the tip.

In response to inquiries from DailyMail.com about whether or not he was on any form of watch list or was known to police, the FBI today revealed that agents received an anonymous tip in 2021 about how many weapons he owned. 

They however forwarded the matter on to Fargo Police Department, whose officers visited his home three times in 2021.

They had received a tip from a concerned member of the public.

The cops spoke with Barakat once, during which time he insisted he had ‘no ill-intentions’ despite his enormous weapons inventory.  They then decided not to pursue any kind of action against him. 

‘During this visit, FPD detectives observed Barakat had several firearms in the apartment; however, none of them were illegal. Barakat was not prohibited from acquiring or possessing guns. 

This is hard to wrap my head around. The cops get a tip from a concerned member of the public, they visit three times, talk with him once (he’s not home the other two times?) and when he says “nah, all good bro'” they decide not to pursue anything? I mean, not even a short period of surveillance to see what he’s up to?

But the red flags were there. “He was permitted entry to the US in 2012 as a political asylum seeker from Syria.” So we bring in a man from an unstable country with radical beliefs under the rubric of “political asylum.” He stockpiles arms and some citizen raises their hand to say there might be a problem with this guy. The authorities ask some routine questions, decide there’s no issue, and then the killer unleashes hell on a quiet city because … we still don’t know why.

Little is known of Barakat, who had no social media presence and worked odd jobs in Fargo and surrounding areas. 

At one time, he worked at Fleet Farm, a firearms store in Fargo. He also frequented gun ranges and was seen there in the hours before the shooting on July 14.  

It’s unclear if he had a family before or after he moved to the US, and federal immigration officials are yet to share details of his political asylum application. 

Before Tuesday’s incident, his only crime or infraction was a speeding ticket. 

North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said there was a ‘suggestion’ he may have been on an FBI Guardian list. 

Unfortunately, this sounds all too familiar.

The latest FBI transgressions resulted in some of the deadliest terrorist attacks since Islamic jihadists carried out their plots in 2001, killing thousands of innocent Americans. They include the 2009 massacre at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 2016 mass shooting at an Orlando, Florida nightclub and the 2017 attack at the Fort Lauderdale Airport in south Florida. In 2011 the FBI opened a counterterrorism lead into Nidal Hasan, the perpetrator of the Fort Hood shooting, but the probe was closed five months later after agents evidently determined that Hasan did not pose a national security threat. Months later he massacred 13 people at a U.S. military post. The Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, was also under FBI investigation before he carried out his attack for making statements that displayed his radicalized ideology. Less than a year later the probe was closed after agents ruled the information to be unfounded. Mateen killed 46 people.

You want to know why so many Americans don’t trust our national departments of law enforcement like the FBI and the DOJ? Because they’re too busy pursuing the bogeyman of “domestic terrorists” while ignoring true threats to our safety like Mohamad Barakat.