The FBI has arrested a 20-year-old Jewish man for posing as an Australian-based Daesh jihadist calling for terrorist attacks against the US and Australia and providing information on bomb construction to a second party via the internet.
According to the Times of Israel, Joshua Ryne Goldberg who lives with his parents in Florida posed as the notorious jihadist “Australi Witness” on Twitter and Facebook and incited Muslims to commit crimes in the US and Australia.
Goldberg is believed to have also impersonated the prominent Australian lawyer Josh Bornstein and used his name to write an incendiary blog at the Times of Israel.
Goldberg was charged with alleged “illegal distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction,” which is a federal crime.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald citing an affidavit sworn at the time of the arrest: “Mr Goldberg has distributed information pertaining to the manufacturing of explosives, destructive devices, or weapons of mass destruction in furtherance of an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence between August 19 and August 28.”
US Attorney Lee Bentley III said Goldberg instructed a confidential source on how to make a bomb similar to two used in the Boston marathon bombings two years ago that killed three people and injured more than 260.
He allegedly instructed someone how to fill the bomb with nails, metal and other items dipped in rat poison.
Goldberg has also provided instructions that could be used to make explosives as part of a plot to explode a bomb on 13 September at a memorial ceremony in Kansas City, commemorating the 9/11 the terrorist attacks.
The affidavit, released by Special Agent William Berry of US Customs and Border Protection, says that Goldberg had initially denied being involved in distributing information on how to make a bomb, but later admitted it.
“Goldberg further admitted that he believed the information would create a genuine bomb,” Berry alleged.
Australi Witness also urged followers to target Australian cartoonist Larry Pickering, who has previously depicted the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh).