The Jihadi's among us....

The FBI botched another recent investigation. This one let a Muslim girl allegedly attempt ‘jihad.’

Feb 19, 2018 1:30 pm

The FBI admitted it didn't follow protocol when investigating the Florida shooter. The agency also knew about another young person — who was investigated and released — before she reportedly set numerous fires on the campus of St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Shawn Thew/AFP/Getty Images) 

Chris EnloeWEEKEND EDITOR

In the days following last week’s tragic shooting at a high school in Florida, the FBI has come under scrutiny because it admitted investigators failed to follow protocol in investigating the shooter, who had been reported to the bureau. But it’s not the agency’s only recent botched investigation that led to a 19-year-old person committing serious crimes.

What’s the other?

Tnuza J. Hassan was arrested last month after reportedly setting numerous fires on the campus of St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. The fires didn’t injure anyone and didn’t cause significant damage, a huge wrench in Hassan’s plan. 

According to reports, Hassan told investigators she “wanted the school to burn to the ground and that her intent was to hurt people” and the fires were an attempt at committing “jihad.” She admitted she was angered by U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and wanted to deliver a “pay back” of sorts to Americans.

However, Hassan, just 19, wasn’t an unknown individual to the FBI, according to The Associated Press. In fact, she landed on their radar last year when she was stopped from flying to Afghanistan in September. She told investigators then that she wanted to join Al Qaeda. She told them she thought she would marry a terrorist, but never fight.

Still, the young girl admitted that she would wear a suicide belt if she needed to and said she encouraged her other Muslim friends to “join the jihad in fighting.”

Despite all of that, investigators released the girl. As the AP noted, it’s not clear how closely the FBI was monitoring Hassan between that interview and when she was barred from traveling to Ethiopia in late December. But it couldn’t have been closely because she disappeared for a week before the fires at St. Catherine’s.

Hassan faces serious charges, including multiple counts of arson, lying to the FBI, and attempting to provide “material support” to Al Qaeda.