The FBI arrested Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, Monday in Oklahoma City after unearthing his alleged plot to carry out a large-scale Nov. 5 attack on public crowds. Tawhedi had pledged support to the Islamic State, which the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

Tawhedi is believed to have entered the country amid the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal from Kabul in 2021 and drawn the ire of Republicans who have voiced serious concern for the Biden-Harris administration’s screening and vetting processes of the tens of thousands of Afghans it airlifted out.

Details of the criminal arrest

Tawhedi was arrested by FBI agents Monday. Charging documents filed by federal prosecutors stated Tawhedi divulged that he and his co-conspirator had planned to die as martyrs in an attack targeting large crowds in the U.S. early next month.

The alleged terrorist had gone as far as ordering AK-47 rifles, liquidating his family’s assets, and even purchasing one-way tickets for his wife and child to travel home to Afghanistan, according to officials.

Tawhedi had spent months planning the attack, according to the FBI affidavit.

The co-conspirator was described as a minor and the brother of Tawhedi’s wife.

How Tawhedi entered the US

Tawhedi entered the U.S. in September 2021.

The Department of Justice charging document initially called Tawhedi a Special Immigration Visa holder, though NBC News has reported he was admitted to the U.S. on parole.

It’s not clear if Tawhedi entered by way of the southern border or was one of tens of thousands of Afghans airlifted out of Kabul only later to be paroled into the country.

The Biden-Harris administration’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 led to an immigration nightmare for the U.S. government. In setting a deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan, Biden pledged to evacuate U.S. allies who helped troops during the 20-year war on terrorism.

The U.S. government created a special visa category, the SIV program, for those who helped the U.S. during the war. A 14-step process is required to obtain this type of visa.

In June, State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter said SIV applicants would be airlifted “before we complete our military drawdown by September.”

In late July, the State Department broadened the pool of people eligible for SIVs, leading more Afghans to believe they could qualify, which in turn led to more hysteria. Afghans desperate to escape jumped at the chance to board the planes. 

The government was so behind in approving applications in the lead-up to August that only 750 of the 20,000 applicants were in the final stage of the process. 

Kabul airlift

When Kabul was overtaken by the Taliban in August 2021, Afghans rushed to the airport in an attempt to get out of the country while U.S. troops were evacuating people who had helped the U.S. during the war.

Despite President Joe Biden’s statements that the administration would rescue those who were visa recipients, the administration airlifted an additional tens of thousands of people who were not U.S. citizens, allies, or green card holders.

It was the largest air evacuation in U.S. history — the Biden administration airlifted out more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan, with 84,000 going to the U.S.

“Planes taking off from Kabul are not flying directly to the United States. They’re landing at U.S. military bases and transit centers around the world,” Biden said on Aug. 22, 2021. “At these sites where they are landing, we are conducting thorough scrutiny — security screenings for everyone who is not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident.”

The Department of Homeland Security assumed responsibility for the Afghan airlift screening and vetting operation. Its U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers were responsible for checking Afghans against available information and vetting what information they had.

Screening is the initial stage in reviewing a refugee or immigrant’s background. The next step is vetting, which refers to the in-person interview by a federal official who determines if the evacuee is who he or she claims to be and whether the person poses a national security risk to the U.S.

Vetting refugees and immigrants became an admission requirement after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but it was dropped in the case of the Afghan refugees, according to a 2021 Senate memo that outlined debrief interviews with government officials involved in the undertaking.

Some Afghans told DHS officials that they did not have documents because they did not want the Taliban to see their papers at checkpoints. Federal officials did not list in the memo how many people did not provide identification documents. Other federal officials said in the memo that the U.S. officials screening the Afghans were not trained in how to spot fake identification documents from Afghanistan. 

Governments share information on dangerous people, though data from the Afghanistan government may be hard to come by for U.S. screeners, given the government’s fall to the Taliban.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas instructed federal law enforcement officials to admit Afghans and release them into the U.S. on a two-year basis, where they would be expected to follow up with authorities. This process is referred to as parole.

Parolees were held at domestic military bases for the time being but were released into the country within days with the help of refugee assistance groups. Parolees are supposed to check in with immigration authorities at a future date. 

Parole conditions that must be met before leaving the U.S. military bases are receiving relevant vaccinations, including for polio, measles, varicella, and COVID-19; agreeing to update DHS with any change of address within 10 days; responding to federal requests for information; and complying with federal, state, and local laws and health directives. They also remain in contact with DHS’s Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Concerns from lawmakers

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is among the many Republicans who have chided the Biden-Harris administration since 2021 over concerns that the tens of thousands of Afghans admitted were not vetted.

“I was highly vocal about the need to thoroughly vet SIV applicants during, and in the weeks, months, and years following, the Biden-Harris administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Grassley said in a statement Wednesday. “But the White House, executive agencies, and many of my Democratic colleagues in Congress were quick to dismiss those glaring alarms.”

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Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) said the arrest Monday was “yet another indicator” that the Afghanistan withdrawal has put the safety of people in the U.S. at risk.

“Terrorists are capitalizing on this admin’s security failures, not only abroad, but at our southern border as well, where we have seen a 400% increase in terrorist watch list encounters,” Fallon said in a post to X on Wednesday. “The lack of transparency, incompetence and outright lies on the part of the Biden-Harris Admin continue to threaten US national security.”