An Afghan national has been arrested after allegedly posting a video of himself on TikTok in which he claimed he was building a bomb with an intended target in the Fort Worth, Texas area, the Department of Homeland Security announced Saturday.
Mohammad Dawood Alokozay was arrested on Tuesday in Fort Worth, Texas, by the Texas Department of Public Safety and an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.
According to authorities, Alokozay posted a video on TikTok in which he appeared to be constructing a homemade bomb using various materials. Throughout the video, he explicitly indicated that his intended target was the Fort Worth area in Texas.
The video served as a direct threat to detonate the device in the region, prompting a swift investigation after it was flagged by authorities.
Alokozay faces state-level charges of making a terroristic threat and is currently being held at the Tarrant County Corrections Center in Fort Worth. Updates on scheduled court appearances are not available as of this report.
Alokozay entered the United States on September 7, 2022, as part of Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that resettled Afghans following the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021. He was then admitted into the country as a lawful permanent resident.
Following his arrest, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged a detainer on him, with involvement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in reporting the incident.
There is no publicly available information confirming whether Alokozay aided coalition or U.S. forces in Afghanistan. While Operation Allies Welcome prioritized such individuals, his specific eligibility details have not been disclosed in reports.
The arrest came just a day before Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the country through the same program as Alokazay, shot two West Virginia National Guard soldiers in downtown Washington D.C. One of the soldiers, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, succumbed to her injuries on Thanksgiving Day while the second victim, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, remains hospitalized in critical condition.
Lakanwal allegedly stormed around a corner and ambushed the two soldiers with a .357 magnum revolver as they were on patrol less than a mile from the White House. He was then subdued by another National Guardsman — who was armed only with a pocket knife at the time of the attack — and taken into custody.
The incidents have ignited debate over the Operation Allies Welcome program, which has long been criticized for lack of adequate vetting. President Donald Trump announced Wednesday night that all visas issued as part of the program would be placed under review, while the State Department moved to immediately halt all visa service with Afghanistan on Thursday morning.
In a follow-up post, President Trump announced an indefinite pause on all immigration from destabilized “third-world” countries, in addition to increased scrutiny for legal immigrants found to harbor adversarial views of the United States and its people.
