Aurora Teen Suspected of Plotting Bomb Attack on LIT Nightclub to Remain Detained

Updated: 11:55 a.m., May 3

The 18-year-old Aurora man who stands accused of attempting to link with a Syrian al-Qaida cell—and is suspected of helping plot a bomb attack on the now-defunct LIT nightclub just outside of Naperville—was ordered to remain detained Friday, the Chicago Tribune reports. 

According to the the Huffington Post, U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel G. Martin originally ruled that Abdella Ahman Tounisi be released on bail and placed on home confinement and electronic monitoring at his Aurora home on Thursday. However, U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang reversed the decision Friday, according to the Tribune. 

Prosecutors filed the appeal and argued that Tounisi is a flight risk and a danger to society, and should remain behind bars, ABC7 reports.

“We should not underestimate him and his commitment,” to engaging in violent jihad, or holy war," Bloomberg.com quoted Prosecutor William Ridgway saying Thursday. “People very young can do terrible things.”

At Thursday's hearing, Tounisi's defense attorney, Molly Armour, told the court that "the word `terrorism' is a word that tends to taint everything," HuffPo reports, and, noting that official charges against Tounisi are only for allegedly attempting to aid Syrian terrorists, that “he’s charged with attempting to leave the community, not harm it," according to Bloomberg.

The teenage suspect, an active member of the Naperville-area Muslim community with family and supporters from the Islamic Center of Naperville, was arrested at O'Hare Airport in April en route to Syria; prosecutors say he was caught in a sting using an FBI-run mock website to attempt to contact and join fighters with the Syrian group Jabhat al-Nusrah.

In addition, the FBI claims that Tounisi talked in code about placing bombs inside and outside the LIT nightclub to kill as many people as possible; in a court filing, his friend and alleged associate Adel Daoud (charged in a seperate Chicago terrorism case) is quoted describing Lit as a place where "all these filthy people [go] and use drugs and alcohol."

Tounisi's father, Ahmad Tounisi, told ABC7 that the plot could only be planned by Daoud, not his son, and that his son is being targeted for being Muslim. "He never hurt anyone in his life, why would he start now?" Ahmad Tounisi told the station. "All my kids born and raised here, they are more American than some Americans.”

Read more at the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, ABC7 and Bloomberg.com.