Florida Man Indicted for Telling Informant to Carry Out 9/11 Bombing

Provided Informant With Instructions on Making a Pressure Cooker Bomb

20-year-old Joshua Ryne Goldberg of Orange Park, Florida, was arrested and indicted today on charges of “distributing information relating to explosives,” related to a non-existent bomb plot against the 9/11 memorial in Kansas City.

Goldberg, who on Twitter pretended to be a Lebanese refugee living in Australia, was in contact with an FBI informant online, and provided him with details on how to construct a pressure cooker bomb. Goldberg assumed the informant would do the bombing, and encouraged him to do “some jihad” on the 9/11 anniversary.

How accurate Goldberg’s instructions were is not clear, though he is quoted as encouraging the informant to “just put as much sharp stuff as you can in there” to cause maximum damage. He apparently did not intend to attend the bombing himself, and intended the informant do everything.

Goldberg had previously claimed credit on Twitter for inspiring the Garlard, TX attack in May, when gunmen attacked a Muhammad art contest. At the time Goldberg had Tweeted that people should attack the exhibition with “weapons, bombs, and knives.” It was after the attack that the FBI informant contacted him and began the “plot.”

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.