'I wished to kill George W Bush because...': Iraqi man arrested over plan to kill former US president

Shihab Ahmed, 52, said that he assisted in the killing of American soldiers during the Iraq War, the PTI news agency reported.

Columbia: An Iraqi man who came to the United States two years ago and applied for asylum hatched a plot to assassinate former President George W Bush in retaliation for casualties against his compatriots during the Iraq war, the government announced Tuesday. Shihab Ahmed, 52, also schemed to smuggle other Iraqis into the U.S. from Mexico to aid in the plot, after which they'd be smuggled out back through Mexico, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Columbus.

Shihab insinuated he had contacts with the Islamic State group, but it did not appear the plot came close to materializing, with confidential informants briefing the FBI from April 2021 through this month, the complaint said.

Shihab was ordered held without bond by federal Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers during a short hearing in court Tuesday. If convicted, Shihab could face up to 30 years in prison and $500,000 in fines.

Shihab worked at restaurants in and around Columbus and also at a market in Indianapolis where he had an apartment, the government said. He told a confidential informant that he assisted in the killing of American soldiers during the Iraq War, and said he and others "wished to kill former President Bush because they felt that he was responsible for killing many Iraqis and breaking apart the entire country of Iraq," the complaint said.

Shihab traveled in February to Dallas, where he took video of the entrance gate to the neighborhood where Bush lives, and also traveled to Detroit in November to investigate smuggling Iraqi nationals into the U.S., the government said.