Conservative blogger Pamela Geller says she won’t duck and cover over revelations the knife-wielding terror suspect shot dead in Boston Tuesday wanted to behead her.
“This is a showdown for American freedom,” Geller told the Daily News Wednesday.
Usaamah Abdullah Rahim, 26, was plotting to kill her and random law enforcement officers before he was fatally shot by an FBI agent and a Boston cop, CNN reported Wednesday.
The CVS security guard told his friend, David Wright, 25, on Tuesday about a plan to randomly kill “boys in blue” in Massachusetts, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court Wednesday.
He reportedly told Wright that cops were easier to target than someone out of state.
“They targeted me for violating sharia blasphemy laws. They mean to kill everyone who doesn’t do their bidding and abide by them voluntarily,” Geller said late Wednesday. The controversial firebrand, who recently hosted a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest that was attacked by two gunmen in Garland, TX, said she’ll continue her “message of freedom” in the face of “savagery.”
“It’s just beginning,” the Upper East Side right winger said. “ISIS is here. Islamic terrorism is here.”
Rahim had been under 24-hour surveillance for several weeks by the Joint Terrorism Task Force when he was confronted, and ultimately killed, around 7 a.m. outside a CVS Pharmacy in Roslindale. Authorities tried to question Rahim soon after he bought three fighting knives and a sharpener on or before May 26, according to court documents.
“I’m just going to ah go after them, those boys in blue,” Rahim allegedly told Wright in a phone conversation recorded by the feds. “Cause, ah, it’s the easiest target and, ah, the most common is the easiest for me.”
Police say security footage taken from the Boston scene shows Rahim advancing on the officers with a large military-style blade before the shooting.
Rahim, who worked for CVS since March, was shot three times in the front of his body and died at a local hospital, according to authorities. The video has yet to be released but was shown to community leaders who verified the official account.
That unusual step was taken after Rahim’s brother, Ibrahim Rahim, a well-known imam who spoke out against terror after the Boston Marathon bombing, disputed the police account. Ibrahim wrote on Facebook that his brother was waiting for the bus to go to work when the shooting broke out.
The video “makes it clear he was not shot in the back” as Ibrahim claimed and he was not on a cell phone when the gunfire erupted, Darnell Williams, the president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts told reporters after seeing the video.
Shortly after the fatal shooting, Wright was arrested in connection with Rahim’s alleged plot. Wright was arraigned in U.S. District court in Boston Wednesday and charged with conspiracy to obstruct the federal investigation. The feds say Wright was aware of Rahim’s plan to chop up cops either Tuesday or Wednesday and behead an unnamed victim in another state.
Wright advised Rahim to destroy his smart phone because “CSI will be looking for that particular thing and so dump it, get rid of that,” according to prosecutors. Rahim also joked with Wright about “thinking with your head on your chest,” according to the FBI complaints. The feds say that was a thinly veiled reference to Islamic State propaganda videos showing severed heads on the chests of beheading victims.
Wright, who is being held without bail, faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. His next court date is June 19.
Authorities were investigating whether Rahim had been radicalized by Islamic State propaganda on the Internet. Deranged ISIS militants have called for beheadings around the world of “infidels” as they march across large swaths of Syria and Iraq in an attempt to create a caliphate.
Several hostages, including Americans, have been beheaded on video by the bloodthirsty group.
With Sasha Goldstein, Reuven Blau, News Wire Services
