On 9-11 anniversary, a tale of two suspected terrorists raises concerns about double standard

Just two months apart, the FBI stopped two Pakistani men near the border. Both were on the terrorist watchlist. Both are now charged with plotting heinous crimes. But one was stopped in Canada before he crossed the border, while the other was allowed to enter for weeks despite concerns he was working with Iran to assassinate Donald Trump.

The vastly different treatment of Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, now charged with plotting to shoot up a Jewish center in New York, and Asif Raza Merchant, charged in the Trump assassination plot, has perplexed security experts, confounded members of Congress and even left a former top FBI G-man without explanation on this 23rd anniverary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"The scenarios don’t compute," said Bassem Youssef, a decorated retired FBI counterterrorism unit chief and former whistleblower who for years ran one of the bureau's most sensitive terror-fighting tools that culled phone records looking for possible threats.

Just the News has been in constant contact in recent days with federal law enforcement officials in multiple agencies, all of whom are concerned about the disparate handling of Khan's and Merchant's cases, noting that the first diverged from protocols designed to keep terror threats outside the border while the second conformed to normal, traditional tactics.

Congress, meanwhile, has been astounded to learn that as many as 100 suspected terrorists on U.S. watchlists have been let into the country under the Biden-Harris administration.

“There's no ability to stop the terrorists when you've got a wide open border, when you're having thousands of people cross the border every day, and you don't do anything about it, the odds of one or two terrorists being in those mobs that are crossing the border pretty high," House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show Tuesday. 

"And it's, in all honesty, almost impossible for a government agency to pinpoint those people once they get in,” Comer added.

Youssef, who retired from the FBI in 2016, told Just the News the disparate handling of the two cases “raises many questions," especially the FBI’s failure to keep Merchant out of the country. He added the concerns are even more troubling in light of recent reports that former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was improperly flagged on a watchlist. 

Youssef said that “the arrest of Khan seems on the surface to follow the usual protocol of cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian authorities, however, there’s no reasonable explanation for placing a former member of Congress on a Watch List unless the agency has credible intelligence that the Congresswoman poses a threat to national security."

"The fact that former Rep. Gabbard is a member of former President Trump’s transition team makes one wonder about the legitimacy of her placement on a Watch List," he added.

Youssef said the details on Merchant's case did not follow the normal protocols agents follow with terror suspects.

“With all of the above triggers in place, the only plausible explanation for the FBI granting Merchant entry in the U.S. is if he was a source of the FBI. If that was the case, then the FBI failed in vetting their source who was targeting a former president of the United States and a current presidential candidate,” Youssef said. 

“On the other hand, if the FBI allowed Merchant entry to the U.S. to gather intelligence on and identify his connections with a possible terrorist network operating on U.S. soil - such an operation would have to have been approved at the highest levels of the FBI and DOJ. Additionally, Merchant would have been a target of electronic and physical surveillance," he added.

The FBI declined to comment Tuesday on these cases beyond the public court documents and press releases.

Last week, Khan, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was arrested for a plot to gain entry to the United States through the northern border and conduct a mass shooting at a Jewish Center in New York City, according to the Justice Department press release. Jadoon was motivated to “kill as many Jewish people as possible, all in support of ISIS,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement. Khan was not allowed into the country and Williams said he plans to seek Khan's extradition from Canada for prosecution. 

Around November 2023, the government says Khan started communicating via social media and an encrypted messaging app and shared ISIS propaganda videos and literature. After coming into contact with undercover law enforcement officer, Khan said that he and a U.S.-based associate were planning to conduct a terrorist attack in the country. They eventually settled on a Jewish center in New York City. According to the DOJ, he bragged that the planned attack would be “the largest Attack on US soil since 9/11.”

On September 4, Khan attempted to cross the U.S.-Canada border, but was stopped in a small town 12 miles north of the border by Canadian law enforcement. 

Immigration memos reviewed by Just the News show Khan was flagged on a terror watchlist. The database includes warnings for border patrol: “APPROACH WITH CAUTION” and “DO NOT ADVISE THIS INDIVIDUAL THAT THEY MAY BE ON A TERRORIST WATCHLIST.” 

Like Khan, Merchant was also flagged in the federal database, Just the News previously reported. The immigration records from Merchant's arrival in Houston on April 13 clearly stated in bright red that he was flagged by the Department of Homeland Security(DHS) database with the identifier “WATCH LIST” and denoted as a "Lookout Qualified Person of Interest.”

Unlike Khan, the DHS and FBI permitted him to enter the country on a “significant public benefit parole” despite being flagged on a terror watchlist and recently traveling to Iran, a designated state sponsor of terror, Just the News reported last month. Neither the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services not the FBI have told the public exactly what "public benefit" Merchant purportedly offered.

“Parole based on significant public benefit includes, but is not limited to, law enforcement and national security reasons or foreign or domestic policy considerations,” the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website says.

The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force interviewed Merchant, fingerprinted him and inspected the contents of his electronic devices when he arrived at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport, in Houston, but then let him leave with the special parole that expired on May 11, the memos show. 

Merchant was then allowed to freely move around the country until July 12. At that point, a confidential human source ascertained he had tried to line up assassins and was planning to leave the United States, the FBI said. It was at this time that he was arrested.

In the complaint against him charging him with organizing a “murder-for-hire” plot in a scheme to assassinate U.S. politicians or government officials, the DOJ and FBI said Merchant was working “on behalf of others overseas” and pointed the finger at Iran.

The revelation that Merchant was stopped at a port of entry but allowed to enter the United States, despite having terror ties, follows a report from the House Judiciary Committee that found the Biden administration’s DHS released 99 individuals on the terrorist watch list into the country between fiscal years 2021 and 2023 and has 34 others in custody who have not yet been removed.

During those years, CBP encountered individuals from 36 different countries with an active terrorist presence, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, the report says.

In June, eight men from Tajikistan were arrested in coordinated sting operations across the United States because their suspected ties to the Islamic State terror group. All eight of the suspects crossed the southern border, but their criminal background checks were clean when they crossed, NBC News reported.