Senate spy chief: Thwarted Boston plot shows system worked

The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee is calling a thwarted plot to behead someone and kill Massachusetts police officers a success for federal and local agents.

“The important thing is the system we have set up actually worked, and this is another example of it,” Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) told reporters upon exiting a closed-door intelligence briefing on Thursday.

{mosads}“The great news is that not only the intelligence community but law enforcement was well aware of what was going on,” he added.

Earlier in the week, a team of Boston police officers and FBI agents shot dead a 26-year-old Massachusetts man who had allegedly plotted to kill police officers and behead another unnamed target.

The officers approached the man, Usaamah Rahim, on Tuesday morning intending to question him, after keeping him under constant surveillance for days. But when he pulled out a knife and started to approach them, they opened fire, police said.  

Earlier that morning, he had told a friend he was planning to “go after” the “boys in blue,” according to federal charges filed this week.

“I think it’s safe to say that our intelligence community was in concert with FBI, with local law enforcement, and they responded to what they believed to be the initial steps of an operation,” Burr said on Thursday.

Rahim might have been inspired by Internet users sympathetic to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).