Minnesota Raid Disrupts Planned Terror Attack

The FBI believes authorities disrupted a terrorism attack that was being planned in a small western Minnesota city after converging on a mobile home that contained Molotov cocktails, suspected pipe bombs and firearms, the agency said Monday.

Buford Rogers, 24, of Montevideo, was arrested Friday and charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He made his first court appearance Monday and was appointed a federal defender, but an attorney was not immediately assigned to his case.

“The FBI believed there was a terror attack in its planning stages, and we believe there would have been a localized terror attack, and that’s why law enforcement moved quickly to execute the search warrant on Friday to arrest Mr. Rogers,” FBI spokesman Kyle Loven said Monday.

Rogers appeared in court wearing a construction company T-shirt.

U.S. Magistrate Tony Leung ordered Rogers held pending a detention hearing Wednesday, citing “serious concerns” raised in the criminal complaint.

Loven declined to elaborate about the location of the alleged target, other than to say it was believed to be in Montevideo, a city about 130 miles west of Minneapolis. He also declined to say whether Rogers was believed to be acting alone or as part of a group, or if other arrests were expected.

“This is a very active investigation,” he said. He added that at this point, authorities are “looking at this from a domestic terrorism standpoint.”

“Cooperation between the FBI and its federal, state, and local partners enabled law enforcement to prevent a potential tragedy in Montevideo,” Christopher Warrener, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Minneapolis, said in the release.

This article appeared in print on page 1 of the May 7th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.