FBI thwarts Oakland bank bombing

A man who said he supported violent jihad and hoped to start a civil war in the United States with a terrorist attack in the Bay Area was arrested early Friday after trying to detonate what he thought was a car bomb at a Bank of America branch in Oakland, federal prosecutors said.

Matthew Aaron Llaneza, 28, of San Jose was taken into custody near the bank at 303 Hegenberger Road after pressing a cell-phone trigger device that was supposed to detonate the explosives inside an SUV and bring down the building, prosecutors said.

His supposed accomplice was an undercover FBI agent who had been meeting with him since Nov. 30, according to an FBI declaration filed in federal court. The declaration said the FBI had built the purported bomb, which posed no threat to the public.

Llaneza appeared before a federal magistrate in Oakland on Friday on a charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, prosecutors said.

The crime is punishable by life in prison.

Llaneza was released from state prison in November 2011 after serving a one-year sentence for transportation of an assault weapon, an AK-47 rifle, the FBI declaration said.

The FBI agent quoted Llaneza as saying he supports the Taliban and wants to engage in violent jihad.

In the Nov. 30 meeting with an agent who posed as someone connected to the Taliban in Afghanistan, Llaneza said he wanted the bank bombing to be blamed on anti-U.S. government militias, triggering a government crackdown, a right-wing response and a civil war, the FBI declaration said.

He chose the Bank of America branch as a target because of its name and because Oakland has been a center of protests, the declaration said.

Matthew Aaron Llanez Charged In Oakland Car Bomb FBI Terror Sting