Gun shop tips police to TX terror plot

AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) - An AWOL soldier., a stockpile of explosives, and a plot to attack fellow soldiers. It all unfolded this week in Killeen - just an hour north of Austin. The suspected target was Ft. Hood, the nation's largest military post.

The man now under arrest is Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo. He had recently applied for conscientious objector status - citing his Islamic faith - when the Army was about to send him to Afghanistan. But then he went AWOL, traveling to Texas from his home base in Ft. Campbell, Ky.

Just as he started his story about the “young man showing up here in a taxi cab” for a small crowd gathered at his counter, Greg Ebert was cut off by a a phone ringing beside him. He'd lost count of how calls he'd already received on Thursday.

“I got it,” Ebert laughed. “Guns Galore. May I help you?”

A radio reporter was on the other line, keeping Ebert away from his work and on the air. Everyone wanted to hear how he helped bring down a terror plot against Ft. Hood.

The retired police officer and military man said Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo browsed the south Killeen gun shop for about 20 minutes on Wednesday.

“He comes in and says, 'Can I get one of these?” Ebert said, holding up a magazine for a semi-automatic pistol. “You load the ammunition here. When the magazine is loaded, it's inserted into the well of the pistol, locked in place and that's it's capable of being loaded and fired.”

What at first seemed normal to Ebert turned into something strange. He sold Abdo that magazine for a semi-automatic pistol, three boxes of shotgun shells, and six canisters of smokeless powder – something Ebert said is a common ingredient for a pipe bomb.

“What kind of raised a red flag at the point in time is he asked the manager, 'What is smokeless powder?'” he said. “It potentially could be used for an explosive device.”

Abdo left after his purchase, and upon careful consideration Ebert decided to call police.

“They (police) said that they had received a complaint about a man who had a large quantity of gun powder for some reason and that they had tracked him to this location,” a man who chose to remain anonymous told KXAN.

That man said he was staying at the Americas Best Value Inn down the street. Ebert's call helped police track Abdo to a room there, along with a stockpile of firearms and explosives.

“I was awfully close to this,” the man from the motel added. “You think, geez. Thank your lucky stars and live for another day.”
Police spent their day interviewing the suspect. He confessed to planning an attack against Ft. Hood.

“Don't wait for someone else to pick up the phone,” Killeen Police Chief Dennis Baldwin urged the public Thursday. “Call us yourself.”

“I think we've done the right thing for our community,” Ebert later said of his phone call to police.

It was just under two years ago, Ebert said another soldier – Maj. Nadal Hasan - walked into the same store and bought the weapons used in a shooting massacre at Ft. Hood. Since then, Ebert's learned to trust his instinct with customers.

“If we had the capacity to look at a human being and do an analysis and say dangerous or not dangerous, we surely would not sell anything,” he said.

Abdo is now in jail in Killeen, held on a child pornography charge which was filed before he went AWOL. Police say, because of the nature of this week's crime, it has become a federal investigation.