Ex-soldier linked to white supremacist group arrested over 'plot to bomb MLK Day parade'
An ex-soldier has been arrested in connection with a bomb planted at a Martin Luther King Day parade that could have killed hundreds.
FBI vehicles converged on a home about 75 miles north of Spokane, Washington, earlier today and arrested Kevin William Harpham, 36, who has been linked to white supremacist groups.
The bomb was found on January 17 inside a backpack by city workers on the side of the street before the start of the parade.
It was recovered and defused before it could cause any injuries but was said to have had the potential to kill hundreds.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre confirmed that Harpham was a member of the National Alliance in 2004 and a member of the U.S. Army in 1996 and 1997.
The two T-shirts, found inside the backpack, led agents to the area he lived in Colville, Stevens County.
One of the shirts was distributed last year at the Relay for Life race in Colville.
The second shirt - which had the words Treasure Island Spring 2009 on the front - was from a local theatre production in 2009 in the town of Chewelah.
Officials for the FBI described the bomb as sophisticated and designed to produce mass casualties.
Director of the Southern Poverty Law Centre's Intelligence Project that tracks and investigates hate groups, Mark Potok, said: 'What to me this arrest suggests is that the Martin Luther King Day attack is what it always looked like: A terror-mass murder attempt directed at black people and their sympathizers.'
For weeks, the FBI said nothing about possible suspects, but public opinion from the beginning focused on some of the white supremacist groups that have brought notoriety to the region in the past three decades.
The area once served as headquarters for Richard Butler's Aryan Nations, whose members were lured by the small number of minorities.
Officials for the FBI in Spokane, which is leading the search, declined to comment on the developments Wednesday.
Spokane has 200,000 residents and is about 100 miles south of the Canadian border.
Another explosive device was found March 23 beside the Thomas S. Foley U.S. Courthouse in downtown Spokane. No arrests have been made in that investigation, and agents didn't know if the two incidents were related.
In 1996, white supremacists placed a pipe bomb outside City Hall in Spokane. The bomb exploded, blowing out a window and sending nails and screws across the street.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... dreds.html
i wonder if this would have got more media coverage if he'd have been a muslim?
