I’m sure that Mr.Mohamud is a bad guy but a few paragraphs in this New York Times story add strange complications to the story, among which:
For the next several weeks, the F.B.I. let the plot play out, assisting Mr. Mohamud with the details, providing him with cash, scoping out a parking spot near the square, sketching out the plan on paper. At the end of September, Mr. Mohamud mailed bomb components to agents he thought were fellow operatives who would assemble the device.
Planning, funding, building…