FBI thwarts bomb plot against immigrants

Authorities arrested three members of a militia group Friday for plotting to bomb an apartment building filled with Somali immigrants in the western Kansas meatpacking town of Garden City. Curtis Wayne Allen, 49; Patrick Eugene Stein, 47; and Gavin Wayne Wright, 49, are members of a small group that calls itself the Crusaders, Acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall said. The arrests resulted from an eight-month FBI investigation that took agents “deep into a hidden culture of hatred and violence,” Beall said. A confidential source attended meetings of a militia group called the Kansas Security Force in an investigation of its activities against Muslims in southwestern Kansas. The suspects planned to detonate a bomb at an apartment complex where Somalis were among roughly 120 residents, Beall said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.