Federal prosecutors say Afghan national made bomb threat on TikTok video in Texas

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FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A Texas man has been charged with making threats online after authorities said a video showing him threatening to build a bomb, conduct a suicide attack and kill Americans was posted to TikTok and other social media sites.

The charge against Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, an Afghan national, was filed Saturday in federal court. He has not yet had an opportunity to enter a plea, and court records do not reveal if he had obtained an attorney. The federal public defender’s office did not immediately respond to a voicemail left by The Associated Press.

The Texas Department of Public Safety alerted the FBI on Nov. 25 that a video shared by multiple social media accounts showed a video call in which a man claiming to live in the Dallas-Forth Worth area threatened to build a bomb in his vehicle and kill the others on the call. The man said the Taliban were dear to him, FBI special agent Justin Killian said in a court document describing the video.

The FBI used facial recognition technology to identify Alokozay as the man in the video, and he was arrested the same day. Killian said Alokozay admitted making the statements, and said he deleted his TikTok application from his phone after people contacted him saying they had seen the video on social media.

“This Afghan national came into America during the Biden administration and as alleged, explicitly stated that he came here in order to kill American citizens,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a press release. “The public safety threat created by the Biden administration’s vetting breakdown cannot be overstated – the Department of Justice will continue working with our federal and state partners to protect the American people from the prior administration’s dangerous incompetence.”

About 76,000 Afghans who helped Americans were brought to the country as the Taliban took Afghanistan back over in 2021 under a program called Operation Allies Welcome.

Alokozay was initially arrested on a state charge of making a terroristic threat. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin announced the arrest on the social media platform X on Saturday — one day after the Trump administration halted all asylum decisions and paused issuing visas for people traveling on Afghan passports.

Those moves came after two National Guard members were shot Wednesday in Washington. Federal authorities have identified the suspect in the shooting near the White House as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan War.

He applied for asylum during the Biden administration and was granted it this year under President Donald Trump, according to a group that assists with resettlement of Afghans who helped U.S. forces in their country.

Neither McLaughlin nor U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Ryan Raybould indicated any connection between the cases.