A 58-year-old Wichita avionics technician allegedly plotting an al-Qaeda suicide car bombing at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport was arrested Friday morning as he tried to drive onto the tarmac in a vehicle he thought was loaded with explosives.
Terry Lee Loewen, who works at Hawker Beechcraft Services at the airport, was arrested at 5:40 a.m. CT in an FBI sting operation involving undercover agents posing as members of Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Authorities described him as a “lone wolf.”
The alleged plot, which included discussions of having another suicide bomber inside the airport terminal, was timed for just before Christmas “to cause maximum carnage + death,” Loewen wrote Wednesday in a letter he left for his family, the FBI said, USA Today informs.
“My only explanation is that I believe in jihad for the sake of Allah + for the sake of my Muslim brothers + sisters,” Loewen wrote. “Fact is, most Muslims in this country will condemn what I have done. … I expect to be called a terrorist (which I am), a psychopath, and a homicidal maniac.”
