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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A foreign U.S. citizen from Pakistan pleaded blameable on weekday to connexion what he intellection was an al FTO strategy to assail the pedagogue area underground grouping and conventional a 23-year situation sentence.

Farooque Ahmed, 35, was inactive in Oct in a polity injury activeness for conducting surveillance at underground stops and suggesting where to place explosives.

Ahmed, who touched to the United States in 1993, pleaded blameable to digit calculate of attempting to provide touchable hold to al FTO and digit calculate of aggregation information to support in the thinking of a terrorist move on a installation facility, the Justice Department said.

Ahmed, who previously pleaded not guilty, denaturized his appeal during a federal suite hearing in Alexandria, Virginia.

As conception of the appeal deal, prosecutors dropped digit calculate against Ahmed and united to the 23-year situation term, officials said. He had previously visaged up to 50 eld in prison.

U.S. officials said the open was never in some danger and Ahmed's activities were closely monitored during the six-month injury activeness in which polity agents display as al FTO operatives.

After his arrest, the FBI said Ahmed had told undercover agents that he had drilled himself to use firearms in hopes of fighting U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Justice Department and FBI hit visaged critique for much injury dealings and questions over whether the suspects hit been unfairly targeted and lured into plots.

Justice Department officials hit defended them as jural and an essential artefact to prevent another move on U.S. soil.

Other past injury dealings include a Somali-born teenager inactive in Nov in Portland, Oregon, on charges of connexion what he intellection was a strategy to set off a assail at a Christmastime tree illumination ceremony.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

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