Countless lives have been saved after Maryland Police successfully foiled a terror attack near Washington D.C.
Rondell Henry has been charged with stealing a rental truck that authorities report he intended to use in a “Nice-style” attack, referencing the 2016 truck attack that took the lives of 86 people in Nice, France.
Henry, 28, was arrested on march 28th after a security camera captured him parking a U-Haul truck that had been reported as stolen earlier that week. The failed terrorist admitted that he planned to follow the precedent of similar ISIS-credited terror attacks.
“I was just going to keep driving and driving and driving. I wasn’t going to stop,” Henry said in an FBI interview according to charging paperwork that was filed on Monday.
According to NBC News, Henry is a citizen of the United States of America who has “harbored hatred” for non-Muslim people and became a jihadist after watching ISIS propaganda.
The former computer engineer was reported missing by his family on March 26th, 2019 after failing to arrive for work with a Maryland satellite services company. The family filed a missing persons report with Maryland police stating a concern for Henry’s “physical and emotional welfare.”
The U-Haul truck was stolen that same day from a mall parking garage in Alexandria, Virginia. A witness reported seeing a car follow the truck and park a few spaces away before it went missing. Vehicle registration records list the car registered to Henry.
Prosecutors argue that Henry left his job, drove in search of a large vehicle to steal, and looking for a location to cause panic and chaos, the same as what happened in France” according to court documents.
Henry allegedly drove to Dulles International Airport in Virginia, but decided left after seeing the airport’s security staff.
The failed jihadi left the truck and hid in a boat overnight waiting for a larger crowd of pedestrians to form near the National Harbor in the morning. Maryland police found the stolen U-Haul and waited for someone to return. They apprehended Henry as he jumped a security fence.
Henry is scheduled to appear for a detention hearing on Tuesday.