A Jewish man living in Florida has been charged with pretending to be an Australian-based Isis jihadist who publicly called for a series of attacks in the US and Australia.
The 20-year-old Jewish American named Joshua Ryne Goldberg was arrested by the FBI after allegedly inciting an FBI informant to bomb the 9/11 memorial event in Kansas City, Missouri, The Inquisitr reports.
Goldberg is reported to have posted pictures online of a bomb he had been building, under the alias “Australi Witness”.
He was also accused of instructing someone on how to make a pressure-cooker bomb, similar to the one used in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s attack on the Boston Marathon in 2013, suggesting they fill it with metal scraps dipped in rat poison.
He had even managed to convince Isis jihadists he was an Australian jihadist who once worked for Amnesty International.
The Australian Federal Police initially took notice of the man on the internet, but their investigators determined the threats likely originated from the US. The case was then handed to the FBI.
Goldberg is also reported to have posted a hoax blog on the Times of Israel in April, posing as a respected Australian lawyer calling for the “extermination” of Palestinians. The Times of Israel retracted the article and apologised.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Goldberg also tweeted the address of an event in Garland, Texas where pictures of the Prophet Mohamed were to be displayed, calling for individuals to carry out an attack.
Two men arrived with body armour and assault rifles, shooting one security guard in the leg before a police officer shot and killed them both.
If convicted, The Inquisitr says Goldberg could face 20 years in prison.
