Authorities say no one was actually in danger, because the purported explosives in the van were inert. Nineteen-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud was arrested after authorities said he tried to remotely detonate the contents of the van, parked at SW Sixth and Yamhill. Mohamud is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia who attends took classes at Oregon State University.
(Update: The Corvallis Gazette-Times says Mohamud was "studying 'non-degree pre-engineering,' according to a university source and a listing in OSU’s student directory." Update 1:14 pm: The university sent out a clarification: Mohamud dropped all his classes in October.)
Mohamud's arrest—about 20 minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start—followed months of an undercover, sting-type investigation by the FBI in which agents led Mohamud to believe they were helping him plan a terrorist attack. The FBI began the sting, according to the affidavit filed with the arrest, after Mohamud was held off a plane to Alaska in June and told agents in an official interview that he had hoped to fly to Yemen and was in contact with someone the FBI believed was involved in terrorism.
Earlier this year, the FBI used the same tactics to arrest a man who allegedly wanted to blow up Washington, DC's subway system.
"A smart federal, state and local law enforcement investigation caught a criminal tonight bent on mass destruction and murder in our city," Mayor Sam Adams said in a statement. "The bomb was a fake but the criminal who tried to detonate it was real."
A statement from the FBI's top agent in Oregon, Arthur Balizan: “The threat was very real. Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale. At the same time, I want to reassure the people of this community that, at every turn, we denied him the ability to actually carry out the attack.”
Mohamud will appear in federal court Monday. He is being held on a felony charge of of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, authorities say. He could face life in prison and a $250,000 fine. Other coverage of the thwarted bombing is here, here, and here.
Click past the jump to read more about how the plot unfolded.