Terror plotter gets 17 years in US

Rezwan Ferdaus, a man confessed to planning to crash explosive-laden model airplanes into federal buildings has been sentenced to 17 years in prison in Boston, Massachusetts, local media reported Thursday. The Boston Globe said the 26-year-old planned to use rigged cellphones to detonate the improvised devices to bomb the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. His plea bargain with prosecutors helped him to avoid a much lengthier sentence. Ferdaus was arrested back in February near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., as part of an anti-terrorism investigation by the FBI. Ferdaus, a man of Moroccan descent who grew up in Massachusetts, was planning a suicide attack on the Capitol with explosives he received from undercover officers, whom he thought were associates of al-Qaeda. He also planned to deliver bomb-making materials for use in attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq.