Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, a Bangladeshi man arrested on charges of bombing the Federal Reserve building in Manhattan had an accomplice in San Diego who was arrested later on unrelated child-pornography charges, officials said.
Howard Willie Carter II was arrested after law enforcement officials recovered nearly 1,000 images and three video files containing child pornography on a laptop and hard drive in the trash near Carter's apartment, The New York Times reported.
Citing unidentified sources at the law enforcement department, the news report claimed that Carter's computer had e-mails addressed to Yaqeen, an unidentified co-conspirator in the bomb plot.
The federal documents identified that Yaqeen was Nafis' associate who wanted to assist the terrorist attack. Carter is now being treated as a co-conspirator to Wednesday's foiled attack. Carter was placed under surveillance as early as August while a federal agent found information relating to the Federal Reserve bombing plot in his computer. However, the agency had been waiting for the arrest of Nafis to arrest Carter.
Nafis was arrested on Wednesday in an elaborate FBI sting operation after he attempted to detonate a fake car bomb outside the Federal Reserve building.
He was arrested by FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force and is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al Qaeda.
