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Bin Laden-Inspired Man Handed 20 Year Prison Term in Airport Bomb Plot

© AP Photo / Sedgwick County Clerk’s OfficeThis file photo provided by the Sedgwick County, Kan., Clerk’s Office shows Terry Lee Loewen
This file photo provided by the Sedgwick County, Kan., Clerk’s Office shows Terry Lee Loewen - Sputnik International
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A former avionic technician radicalized by Islamic jihad has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for attempting to attack a Kansas airport with a car bomb, the US Department of Justice announced in a statement on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — 60-year-old Loewen pleaded guilty in June to one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

“Terry Loewen abused his privileged airport access to attempt to perpetrate a terrorist attack in Wichita,” Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said in the statement on Monday.

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Loewen, who fell into a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sting operation, was arrested in December 2013 as he tried to enter Wichita Mid-Continent Airport to explode a bomb.

According to the guilty plea, Loewen admitted to becoming friends with a person on a jihadist Facebook website, where he first came to the attention of the FBI.

Undercover FBI agents began communicating with Loewen, who worked at the Wichita airport, during which time he expressed his desire to carry out a terrorist attack.

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Later Loewen met with an undercover FBI agent, who he thought would help him carry out an attack.

Loewen then proceeded with the undercover FBI agent to assemble an inactive bomb before being arrested while trying to use his employee badge to enter the airport and carry out an attack.

Loewen admitted he had been inspired by the teachings of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the American cleric Anwar Al Awlaki, who was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen.

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